‘Nino’ review: A cancer diagnosis prompts a weekend of reckoning in tender French drama

Dir/scr: Pauline Loques. France. 2025. 97mins

A bombshell medical prognosis prompts a younger man to replicate on life’s valuable presents in Nino, Pauline Loques’ delicately-handled debut function which builds right into a touching drama carried on a soulful, understated central efficiency from Theodore Pellerin. This, along with Pellerin’s Cannes Critics Week Rising Star Award, might tip the stability in the direction of a modest arthouse future.

Loque places her personal imprint on a common story

On a roll after latest performances in mini-series Franklin (2024) and Sundance success Lurker (2025), Pellerin is well-cast as Nino Clavel, an introverted, diffident determine in his late 20s. A seemingly routine medical appointment leaves him with the information that he has throat most cancers attributable to human papillomavirus (HPV). Deemed a precedence due to his age, his chemotherapy will start in three days. The remedy means he’ll not be capable to father youngsters however he’s left with the scant comfort that not less than he is not going to lose his hair. There are not any emotional fireworks in response as Nino quietly absorbs the information. “What are my probabilities of dying?,”  he meekly asks. “Let’s discuss probabilities of survival,” comes the response.

Primarily based partially on Loques’ personal lack of a beloved one to most cancers, (the movie is devoted to ‘Romain’), Nino follows the titular character over the weekend of his twenty ninth birthday. The lack of the keys to his house forces him to spend the weekend on the transfer, drifting via an unfamiliar Paris as he goes to go to his mom (Jeanne Balibar), attends a shock birthday celebration organised by his buddy Sofian (William Lebghil) and bumps into outdated schoolmate Zoe (Salome Dewaels) and her son Solal (Balthazar Billaud). He appears to be looking for one thing to carry onto as on a regular basis life carries on regardless. 

Nino carries his most cancers prognosis alone, as if the very act of sharing his information would make it really feel all of the extra actual. He walks the streets, cycles and appears to embrace his isolation. There’s a sense in Pellerin’s efficiency that Nino has all the time been a placid determine, eternally alone in a crowd. Associates all the time appear to be encouraging him to grow to be extra motivated.

Loques’ tender debut feels linked to a convention of French cinema that features Agnes Varda’s Cleo From 5 to 7 (1963), wherein a younger singer awaits take a look at outcomes, and Francois Ozon’s Time To Depart (2005) wherein a younger photographer faces terminal most cancers. Loques additionally ideas her hat to the cinema of Claude Sautet along with her touching use of {a photograph} of Romy Schneider from his The Issues Of Life (1969).

Loque places her personal imprint on a common story, revealing a light-weight contact as she subtly weaves issues of life and demise into the movie.  Nino has a starvation for particulars of his father’s demise on the age of 44; his buddy’s sister is planning forward for motherhood; and he revels within the probability to really feel like a father to the younger Solal as they play collectively and he devises a bedtime story for him. 

Nino will not be a movie that tugs on the heartstrings. It’s quietly observant, encouraging a sense of intimacy via in depth use of close-ups and the comforting anonymity to be present in an enormous metropolis. Exposing Nino to buddies, household and the knowledge of strangers (together with a quick cameo from Mathieu Almaric) gently leads him down a path in the direction of selecting life. Pellerin efficiently inhabits Nino’s diffidence and reserve, however his modest smiles and fond appears successfully convey how the character step by step warms up. The climactic use of the Fontaines D.C. monitor In ’The Trendy World’ gives an ideal expression of how the shadow of demise has allowed Nino to reconnect with life.