For her second feature film behind the camera, Noémie Merlant delivers a funny, gory, chaotic and engaged film that is 2024’s perfect Midnight Movie.
When it was announced that Noémie Merlant, one of France’s brightest stars, was writing a film with Céline Sciamma, who directed her in the peerless Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the hearts of arthouse lovers skipped a beat.
Little did they expect that the collaboration, Merlant’s second time behind the camera after 2021’s Mi Iubita Mon Amour, would be the furthest thing from a period romance.
Instead, Les Femmes au Balcon (The Balconettes) is a deliriously full-on genre film that embraces horror, plenty of slapstick and some frequent toilet humour. It’s Portrait of Three Ladies on Overdrive, if you will.
Set in Marseilles during a heatwave, it tells the story of three friends who end up in an almighty (and bloody) pickle.
There’s Ruby (Souheila Yacoub), a flamboyant and brazenly sex-positive cam girl who doesn’t see why men are allowed to be topless on balconies and women can’t do the same; Élise (Merlant), an actress who has fled a film shoot and her clingy husband in order to get some peace; and Nicole (Sandra Codreanu), a shy, aspiring writer who lusts after a hunky stranger across the street (Emily in Paris heartthrob Lucas Bravo).
After a balcony-to-balcony flirtation and some car troubles caused by Élise, the women score an invitation to his apartment. The nameless beefcake with abs for days turns out to be a photographer, and Ruby takes the lead – much to the chagrin of Nicole.
However, when Ruby returns to the flat the next morning in a catatonic state and covered in blood, there’s work to be done…
No more shall be spoiled here, but safe to say that Merlant delivers a funny, gory, chaotic film that is 2024’s perfect Midnight Movie. Rather aptly, it premiered in Cannes this year in the Midnight section.
The Balconettes has a lot going for it.
Merlant confidently plays with the codes of genre cinema and utilises them rather shrewdly. The horror elements – everything from the brilliant Rear Window-echoing opening shot to the modern update on the gory rape-revenge subgenre – work like a charm. As does the comedy, which often recalls Very Bad Things – only with more slapstick leanings, arse-suffocation, stapler masturbation, and an engaged verve.
Throughout, the director / actress denounces not just patriarchal oppression but how emancipation is the name of the game. Her wildly entertaining fable is a missile aimed at those who don’t understand consent (whether it’s hookups or in a marriage) and those reluctant to see women free themselves from men who feel entitled to their bodies.
And bodies there are: from severed penises to wobbling flesh, there’s a refreshing candidness here that serves a distinct purpose. It’s not just vulgarity for vulgarity’s sake, and a fart is never just a fart. Here, bodies are functional entities, which are not there to be judged, claimed or canonized. Instead, there’s a demystifying of fantasies – as evidenced by Élise showing up dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Humour is a tool of reappropriation, and Merlant doesn’t use half measures.
None of it would work if the chemistry fell flat. Thankfully, the performances stand out: Codreanu, Yacoub and Merlant form a high-energy trio that prevents the film from toppling into low-powered buddy comedy mode. While the characters can easily be pigeonholed in the ‘mousy nerd’, ‘drama queen’, ‘exuberant vixen’ categories, the broadness shows that assault and rape can affect all women in society.
There are some moments where the messaging does get overly didactic, especially when it comes to the supernatural elements which see Nicole develop the worst sixth sense ever: she sees dead abusers.
However broad it gets though as a #MeToo ghost story, there’s the sense that the shitty spectres are there to remind us that all dick gags aside, perpetrators of sexual violence don’t always get their comeuppance, and their victims are almost never afforded the luxury of an apology. Much less a confession.
The Balconettes may be uneven in places, especially in its second half, but its genuine vigour and exaggerated stylings makes it an irreverent fable with teeth – one unafraid to take a stand while making you laugh out loud.
Les Femmes au Balcon (The Balconettes) is out in cinemas now. Check out our interview with Noémie Merlant, who shared her insights on the state of #MeToo in the French film industry, the ‘feminist’ label, and how serious topics should be explored via comedy and genre cinema.
