From March 27, 'The Balconettes' is in theaters, a black comedy about feminism from the star of 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire' Noémie Merlant. Why this unpretentious but effective sketch on the theme of relationships between women and men deserves atte...

Noémie Merlant is primarily known as an actress. Her filmography includes works in films such as 'The Great' and, of course, 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire'. But besides acting, Merlant occasionally tries her hand at directing. And the screaming black comedy 'The Balconettes' (Les femmes au balcon) is already the fourth work by the Frenchwoman in the director's chair. Accordingly, the expectations are higher than for debutants. Let's figure out how well she meets them.

Nadezhda Vasilyeva

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At the center of the story are three very different friends in character and temperament: the free-spirited webcam model Ruby (Souheila Yacoub), the shy writer Nicole (Sanda Codreanu), and the bright but traumatized by abusive relationships actress Élise (Noémie Merlant). They are idly spending another meeting when they meet a handsome photographer living next door. The man invites the trio to his party, not yet suspecting what it will lead to for himself and the girls from across the street.

Given the genre (a mix of horror, comedy, and unexpectedly... fantasy!), it's not hard to guess where the plot will go next – the man will turn out to be a rapist, the girls vengeful victims, and the entire narrative will be infused with feminist notes.

There are countless films on the theme of 'female revenge for violence', off the top of my head come the darker 'I Spit on Your Grave' or the philosophical 'Sympathy for Lady Vengeance'. But Merlant did not follow the beaten path; she chose a different tone for her story – mocking, at times self-ironic, at times explicit. She either shocks with bloody scenes of severed limbs (and not just arms), or invites men to a dialogue about how to have sex, or reflects on the nature of violence that everyone understands in their own way, or peers behind the curtain of family relationships. And in one episode, she even equates her statement to... passing gas!

Sounds chaotic? That's the whole 'The Balconettes'. Here we have a ragged pace (the first half hour is a hurricane, then calm), a mishmash of themes (the text above hasn't even mentioned the sublimation of negative experience into creativity), lots of music (great), nudity (provocative), and the list could go on. Usually, such 'sins' are characteristic of debutants who want to see everything in their film, everywhere at once, and preferably more and louder. But the problem is that Merlant is no longer a debutant and has seen enough on both sides of the camera.

The director wants to talk about important topics but without being a bore or moralizer. Hence the obvious genre shuffle, the provocation unusual for our much more reserved audience, and the lack of coherent character development. Only the heroine played by Noémie Merlant herself gets a decent character arc, who through an unpleasant, let's say, experience processes her pain and moves to decisive action.

Because of this, 'The Balconettes' turns out to be extremely unpretentious in terms of script and subtext, with central motifs presented too straightforwardly. But if you yourself are not a bore or moralizer, the entertainment aspect of the film is rather successful. Some absurdly bloody episodes make you laugh out loud, and small gags scattered here and there (for example, one of the heroines' pit bull is named Brad) keep you from getting bored throughout the film. And watching a peculiar hymn to sisterhood, where girls are ready to follow a friend even, figuratively speaking, into hell, is also moderately engaging.

Trailer:

The film 'The Balconettes' will be released in wide release in Russian cinemas on March 27 thanks to film distribution companies A-One and RWV.