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Competing for theKarlovy Vary Film Festival’s Crystal Globe,Out of Love(Les enfants vont bienin French), from writer-directorNathan Ambrosioni, is both a simple and complex story.Camille Cottin’s emotionally closed-off Jeanne has her life turned upside down whenher younger sister surprises her with a visit along with her children, and then the next day, disappears.Jeanne then has to completely alter her entire existence, from work to her romantic life to her spare guest room, and is forced into becoming their primary caregiver lest they end up in the foster system. It’s a cruel position for Jeanne to be put in, especially since she was willing to divorce her ex-wife because they disagreed about wanting kids. And yet, the movie plays it as a hopeful, and overly simple story of a woman becoming the mother she never knew she could be.
Out of Love, noticeably written by a 25-year-old man, does a great job of digging into the effects such a situation would have on the children, whose behavior goes from erratic to quietly depressed to fits of volatility, and then what seems to be actual happiness. The two child actors are given all the nuance that there is little left for its main character, who is never allowed to mourn the life she has spent 40-plus years making her own.That said, there is a lot to enjoy in this story, and it does stand out for how fleshed-out its child characters are, even if that comes at a cost. When viewed in simple terms,Out of Loveis a nice little film about embracing the unpredictability of life, but it fails to go beyond that to say anything that groundbreaking or nuanced.
What Is ‘Out of Love’ About?
Jeanne is a 42-year-old divorcée who seems pretty dejected from every aspect of her life. She doesn’t engage in friendly chat with her colleagues, and has one-night stands with women who wouldn’t dare stay for breakfast, as that would be too intimate. We’re also introduced to Suzanne (JulietteArmanet), a widowed mother of two and Jeanne’s younger sister. We’re not privy to many details of Suzanne’s life with six-year-old Margaux (Nina Birman) and nine-year-old Gaspard (Manoâ Varvat) before we see the sisters reunite. There are little hints that Suzanne is quietly struggling, and that’s confirmed when Jeanne wakes up the following morning and realizes thatSuzanne came to visit to leave the children in her sister’s care and run away.
With the police not being able to do much as no crime has been committed,Jeanne is forced into motherhood with two sad and confused children calling for their mother. Jeanne’s only two options are legally taking authority over the children, something she is hesitant to do at first as she feels she would be an inept guardian, or putting them in the foster system, where they could be separated. Jeanne must simultaneously look after the two traumatized children who have been abandoned by their only living parent and reckon with her sister’s dire situation, which has resulted in her life becoming a stranger to what it once was.
‘Out of Love’ Fails to Show the Nuances of Parenthood
FromLove Me TendertoBroken VoicestoIf I Had Legs, I’d Kick You, themes of the woes of parenthood and the corruption of childhood are prevalent across Karlovy Vary’s slate. Compared to the three aforementioned titles,Out of Lovecomes in as the most simple and least confronting.Sure, there are scenes in which Jeanne is verbally beaten down by the children as a result of their trauma and abandonment, and there are some sobering moments that capture a fractured family unit that has been devastated by life,but it always bounces back neatly before we’ve had time to sit with the more challenging moments. It plays out like a more somber and groundedStepmom, but the Hollywood sensibilities are still there, like the assumption that every woman can become a mother if the situation were to present itself.
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This plays into the biggest issue of not giving Jeanne the space to fully consider how her life has been changed forever. We meet her ex-wife, Nicole (Monia Chokri), throughout the film, who is much more of a natural with the kids, mirroring their marriage-ending argument over having children. But if Jeanne was so hellbent on not becoming a mother that she was willing to break up with a partner she deeply loved, the weight of her then becoming a mother figure should be a lot heavier.But this never passes over into Ambrosioni’s script, which always feels hesitant to get into the ugliness of raising children, especially in these kinds of circumstances. Jeanne is never afforded the rage, confusion, grief, or sadness of being forced into this position, nor do we see her fully reckon with the fact that her sister was suffering so badly, she was willing to do something as drastic as this.
Where the script does show its strength, though, is in the characters of Gaspard and Margaux. Usually, in films like these, the kids are only allowed to play the screaming brat who is acting out due to the adults around them creating an environment that is less than stable, or they’re loving and affectionate. Here,the two children carry the brunt of the film’s emotional intelligence, as it’s on their faces that you see the repercussions of the characters’ actions. Ambrosioni’s direction, which is consistently strong throughout, gives extra care and tenderness when following Gaspard and Margaux, as he comforts her in the school’s quiet room, or they share secrets while lying in bed next to each other. It’s rare to see child characters afforded such depth, and it does work to make up for the lack of complexity given to the adult characters.
‘Out of Love’ Is Full of Brilliant Performances
Out of Loveis elevated by a fantastic cast, led by Camille Cottin. Known for affable characters in Hollywood productions likeStillwaterandHouse of Gucci,English-speaking audiences will probably have never seen her as hard and stoic as inOut of Love. There is an inherent sadness to her, as the disappointment of her life has shaped her into someone who would rather never think about it than actually do something about it. When Margaux asks her if she likes her job, she dismisses the question by stating, “Adults don’t ask themselves these kinds of things.” But Cottin still brings that natural affability she’s known for, andwhile the script doesn’t offer as much depth as you’d expect, Cottin gives her all in every scene, knowing when to break into big emotions and when to let it slowly seep out across her face.
Monia Chokri is a limited but warm presence, and one dinner scene between them serves as the emotional gut-punch of a film already laced with heartbreak.Manoâ Varvat and Nina Birman give two of the best young performances I’ve seen recently, never falling into the common trap of hamming it up for dramatic effect. Their moments of quiet reflection, coming to terms with the fact they are also never going to have the same life, are just as powerful as their bigger expressive scenes. Their performances reflect one of the film’s most astute qualities: that the road to healing is never consistent. They oscillate between the conflicting emotions of accepting a new guardian, while always carrying the grief of their mother and their old life. It’s exceptional work from such young children, and they pair beautifully with Cottin.
With this year’s festival circuit chock-full of complex, messy, andnuanced portrayals of motherhood,Out of Lovedoesn’t break any new ground.There’s a subtle message of “every woman wants children even if they say they don’t,” and it pales in comparison to recent festival players likeDie, My Lovein how they show the challenges of motherhood. But, if you want to read it as a simple story of finding hope and accepting that life doesn’t always turn out the way you think it will, well then you may get a bigger kick out of it than I did. Still, fantastic performances abound, and Nathan Ambrosioni shows considerable talent, especially in drawing out performances and directing emotionally charged scenes.
Out of Lovepremiered at the 2025 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Out of Love
Out of Love is a quaint, simple look at the woes of parenthood, but it never ends up saying anything particularly nuanced.
