THE STORY – One late summer, Clémence tells her ex-husband that she’s having romantic relationships with women. Her life is turned upside down when he takes custody of her son. Clémence must fight to remain a mother, a woman, and a free woman.
THE CAST – Vicky Krieps, Antoine Reinartz & Monia Chokri
THE TEAM – Anna Cazenave Cambet (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 134 Minutes
Anna Cazenave Cambet’s “Love Me Tender” begins with a coming out and traces the quiet disruption that follows it. Adapted from Constance Debré’s autobiographical novel, the film explores the emotional cost of living openly in a world that quickly punishes difference. Clémence, a woman whose choice to embrace a new life after coming out to her ex-husband, sets in motion a series of losses, negotiations, and small acts of resistance. The story is intimate, but the emotional ground it covers—mostly around sexuality and self-preservation—feels far-reaching.
At the center of the story is Clémence, a woman whose recent declaration leads her ex-husband to challenge her custody of their son. The stakes are deeply personal, but the script too often dramatizes rather than delves deeply into them. Moments of supposed transformation pass quickly; declarations of love or despair are stated more than felt. Scenes that should carry emotional weight—particularly romantic ones—feel rushed or underdeveloped, leaving viewers with a sense of distance rather than intimacy. The film wants to suggest a woman torn between competing forms of love, but the romantic love itself is never truly allowed to evolve.
The concern isn’t a matter of restraint or formal minimalism. Anna Cazenave Cambet constructs a world of fleeting encounters and implied consequences, but the emotional scaffolding isn’t always there to hold it together. Clémence’s romantic partners, particularly Sarah (Monia Chokri), appear significant, but little is shown to ground their importance. The film seems to expect us to fill in the emotional blanks without quite giving us enough to do so. Instead of building emotional tension, it leaves it sketched in the margins.
By contrast, the relationship between Clémence and her son emerges as the film’s most compelling and fully realized thread. Their connection is messy, tender, and palpably real. Making a complex bond that grounds the story amid the rage. These scenes pulse with a chaotic warmth and vulnerability that the romantic sequences lack, exposing the emotional core of the film. It is here, in these moments of imperfect but enduring love, that “Love Me Tender” truly finds its voice.
What gives the film its shape and its weight is Vicky Krieps. Her performance operates on a fine register: neither loud nor overly still but tuned to the tremors of a woman quietly unraveling. Krieps carries Clémence’s contradictions without resolving them; she is proud and exhausted, loving and absent, composed yet clearly on the edge. Her physical presence does a kind of narrative work: tall, slightly distant, always a little out of sync with the world around her; she seems to embody the dissonance between how Clémence sees herself and how she is being seen. It’s a performance that doesn’t demand attention but holds it nonetheless, drawing us into a character who is not always easy to access but never slips into abstraction.
In the end, “Love Me Tender” is less about resolution than about endurance. It lingers in the spaces between choices and consequences, asking what it takes to insist on one’s truth when that truth is met with doubt, silence, or outright resistance. If the film occasionally falters in making that inner life visible, it never lets us forget the stakes. Clémence may be worn down but never erases herself. And through Krieps’ quiet precision, we are reminded that some of the toughest combats are the ones fought in near silence.
