‘The Balconettes’ Review: A Frenzied, Feminist Farce in the Summer Heat

French buildings have that je ne sais quoi—especially those five- or six-story ones with nothing but stairs. They’re charming, old-fashioned constructions… until you need to haul a corpse in a garbage bin up one of them. That’s just one of the many problems faced by the three heroines of this wild, shape-shifting film directed by Noémie Merlant, who also stars as one of the trio. The story unfolds over a few sweltering summer days in Marseille that grow increasingly chaotic as time—and trouble—pile up.

After a violent prologue in which a neighbor kills her abusive husband, the film takes a surprising turn: bright, playful, and almost buoyant. Imagine Spike Lee filtered through Pedro Almodóvar. It’s scorching hot in Marseille; everyone’s out on their balconies, spying on each other like in Rear Window, the air thick with music, sweat, food, sexual tension, and a carnival of colors and costumes.

On one of these balconies are our protagonists—women who seem to have wandered out of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. They share a chaotic apartment, each with her own issues. Ruby (Souheila Yacoub) is a bold cam girl with a flamboyant look and boundless energy. Nicole (Sanda Codreanu) is her opposite: a quiet aspiring writer who draws inspiration from the life around her. Both are intrigued by their shirtless, flirty neighbor across the street, a certain Magnani (Lucas Bravo, of Emily in Paris fame).

The one who makes contact with him is Élise (Merlant), an actress returning distraught from a shoot in which she plays Marilyn Monroe—though here she’s more Marisa Paredes in High Heels than Hollywood’s blonde bombshell. After crashing her car into Magnani’s, she inadvertently sets up the perfect excuse for Ruby to meet him. The first half-hour, the film’s best stretch, plays like a summer comedy filled with laughter, dancing, drinking, and close-ups so intense you can see every drop of sweat on their faces. Fueled by alcohol and Ruby’s manic charm, the three women head to Magnani’s place for what promises to be a wild night. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well.

That’s when The Balconettes begins to justify its slot in Cannes’ Midnight Screenings. The early lightness doesn’t entirely vanish, but it gives way to darker tones—first a crime thriller, then something more surreal, edging toward the supernatural. Bit by bit, the film reveals itself as what its opening scene hinted at: a fierce, messy feminist outcry against gender violence. Co-written by Merlant and Céline Sciamma, the film shifts in tone and style—sometimes awkwardly—from sensual farce to macabre empowerment saga. Soon we’re deep in a story involving dismembered bodies, rape, abortion, ghosts, cops, and a growing sense that these women have had enough of men’s brutality.

Merlant directs with unusual freedom and disarming honesty. Both she and Ruby are often half-dressed; Ruby is constantly filming herself in erotic poses; even a gynecologist visit becomes a striking visual moment, all the more so because Merlant films herself. That candor, combined with the movie’s feverish rhythm, gives The Balconettes its distinctive pulse. The film is fascinating at first but begins to stumble midway as it leans into heavy-handed symbolism and familiar tropes about women cleaning up men’s literal and figurative messes.

Somewhere between farce and protest, between sex comedy and trauma drama, Les Femmes au Balcon is an in-your-face movie: exuberant, funny, and daring at times, a bit didactic and repetitive at others. But thanks to Merlant’s energy and bravado—there’s even a running gag about her character farting—the excesses mostly work. It’s a kind of Hitchcockian black comedy where everyone behaves the opposite of what they would in a Hitchcock film. Furious yet playful, absurd yet pointed, The Balconettes is less tragicomic than militantly political—a film of sweat, laughter, and rage.