Enzo

The last screenplay by Laurent Cantet—one of the frontrunners of contemporary French cinema—brought to the screen by BPM director Robin Campillo, is a summer-soaked coming-of-age story that tastes of sweet apples and tart citrus. Minimalist yet profoundly emotional, it is a film in which everyday conversations, static camera movements, and small moments take on immense significance. One could easily call it a kindred spirit to Call Me By Your Name, in which a summer holiday turns to have a larger-than-life meaning.

Young Enzo rebels against the expectations of his upper-class family by taking a job on a construction site, only to discover his own clumsiness and incompetence. A storm brews within him, even as the harshly masculine environment limits his opportunities for self-expression. The adult world that opens up to a teenager is complex and intimidating, a jungle of power dynamics, the looming shadow of war on Europe’s edge, and the rigid divisions of French social class. Even so, on the site, Enzo finds tenderness, a role model, and his first crush in Vlad, a Ukrainian laborer (Maksym Slivinskyi).

Class, culture, nationality, and political crises frame Enzo’s passage into adulthood, but they do not crush him. The film’s mastery lies in reflecting the universal and the personal, and in its empathetic gaze upon an individual who is more than the product of their circumstances. This may well be the most humane cinematic experience of the year.

Joonas Kallonen (translated by Kati Ilomäki)