52 Films by Women Vol 10. 27. NINO (Director: Pauline Loquès)

 

Pictured: 'It's the end of my world and I know it.' Nino (Théodore Pellerin) attends his surprise birthday party twenty-four hours after being told that he has throat cancer in a scene from writer-director Pauline Loquès' Paris-set film, 'Nino'. Still courtesy of Curzon (UK)

Nino Clavel (Théodore Pellerin) the soon-to-be 29-year-old protagonist of French writer-director Pauline Loquès’ feature debut, Nino, faces his worst-ever birthday weekend. Visiting a Paris clinic on Friday to collect a sick note, he is told that he has throat cancer. Nino had complained of fatigue and a pain in his throat but did not expect the diagnosis of papillon carcinoma, the result of a sexually transmitted disease he contracted when he was younger.  However, he is being fast-tracked for treatment. He needs to have someone to accompany him on Monday morning for the first appointment. He is told that the treatment will not result in hair loss but will reduce his sperm count. If he wants children, he needs to bring a sperm sample to reproductive services within one hour of ejaculation.

Loquès and her director of photography Lucie Baudinaud skilfully and subtly present Nino’s disorientation. Our initial view of him is obscured as he presents himself to a hospital clerk. He is on the other side of the window, having to spell out his surname. Everyone he meets on the ground floor of the hospital is under the impression that he knows more than he does. When his diagnosis is presented to him, the oncologist (Victoire Du Bois) is incredulous. ‘You had tests?’ she asks. ‘No,’ he replies. Outside the oncologist’s office, building work is taking place, creating an atmosphere of oppressive uncertainty. On the fifth floor, he is given his sperm jar in the waiting area and only receives it after he returned to look for his keys. This disorientation extends to the audience. When he arrives outside his apartment door, he has something in his hand that looks like keys, but we are told they are missing.

The pre-credits sequence that opens the film is extensive. The credits are listed over a single long take in which Nino in his green jacket walks down the street, the camera pulling back to reveal a metro bridge that briefly obscures our view. Nino is small in the frame, an unremarkable presence. As the film progresses, he is framed more prominently, appearing larger (as it were). It is a simple visual strategy that is strikingly effective.

Nino’s disorientation isn’t just shown visually. He is not capable of relating his own condition to that of his late father. ‘Did he have a cardiac arrest?’ Nino is asked. ‘No, he fell down a spiral staircase,’ Nino replies. His response is almost comic, the film exuding gallows humour.

Locked out of his apartment, with limited mind space, Nino heads for a café and purchases a cookie. Ostensibly, he wants to use the bathroom to attend to his sperm donation. The cramped facilities afford him little opportunity to summon an erotic image and there’s a queue. Outside he meets Zoe (Salomé Dewaels), whose young son, Solal (Bathalzar Billaud) needs to relieve himself. Zoe and Nino were in the same class. What are the odds? Thinking of his sperm cup, he tells her that he too is becoming a father. She invites him to attend a flea market on Sunday, where she will be selling some baby clothes. Solal calls out. ‘Shouldn’t you be in there with him?’ an older woman in the toilet queue asks Zoe. It is time for Nino to leave.

After purchasing a postcard with an inspirational slogan in English (‘You’ve got this’), Nino heads for an apartment building. He types in an access code. Doesn’t work. Then he waits for the door to be opened before slipping in to drop a note to one of the residents (‘get yourself tested’). Just then, the intended recipient, Nino’s ex, Camille (Camille Rutherford) appears, carrying a box, whose contents include a plant. ‘May I help?’ asks Nino. ‘It’s not that heavy,’ Camille replies. She is keen to read Nino’s message. ‘Yes, but not right now,’ he tells her. She invites him back to her near-empty apartment, explaining that she is moving to Canada. She offers him iced tea, the only drink she has. Nino once spent a lot of time in the apartment. Now, it, like the prospects in his life, is empty. The cutaway shot of an iced tea glass on the floor tells us a lot, symbolising the void into which he finds himself. Camille remembered his birthday but considers it pointless that their only contact is to send a card to mark that day. This too is a signifier of life slipping away.

We see Nino on the subway, looking at a group of girls who are chatting and laughing. They don’t share his abyss. We next see Nino walking in the middle of a road, heading for his mother’s house. Maman (Jeanne Balibar) has prepared some vol au vents but insists that they aren’t ready. ‘I’ll put them back in the oven,’ she tells Nino. ‘You don’t need to,’ he replies. She presents him with a cake onto which she places twelve candles. ‘Why are you lighting these?’ Nino asks, no longer her small boy. ‘To light my cigarette,’ she replies. Maman has sent him a gift, though he has not yet received it. He asks about his father. ‘What did he say when I was born?’ ‘You’re going to be very big,’ Maman tells him.

Pictured: 'Depression?' Maman (Jeanne Balibar, centre) raises a sceptical eyebrow in a scene from the French drama, 'Nino', written and directed by Pauline Loquès. Still courtesy of Curzon (UK)

The vol au vents don’t agree with Nino, at least that is how his mother sees it. He tells her that he went to a doctor but can’t bring himself to mention the diagnosis. ‘I have depression,’ he says finally. Maman is sceptical. Later, after he vomits – the upset takes place off camera - she strokes his head. Unable to sleep in his old room, preserved from his teenage years, he looks through some old photographs. He then tries on his old hoodie – it is too small – and listens to some music on his CD player. Nino is no longer that child – so who is he?

The next day, he returns to his apartment building. The concierge is still absent. ‘Have you seen him?’ he asks of one of the other residents, a young man. ‘No,’ he awkwardly replies. Nino spends most of his afternoon on a Citi bike – he heads to his friend Sofian’s house later ‘to watch the game’ (as he told his mother). Loquès presents a montage of Nino riding the bike, always in the centre of the frame. She doesn’t show what he sees, instead isolating him from the city, anonymous in his green jacket. He doesn’t move at the same speed as everyone else, evidenced by the young man, Raph (Alexandre Desrousseaux) who glides past him, taking the Citi bike parking space that Nino heads towards. Raph – we learn his name later – is apologetic. He would find another spot, but he would have to pay again. Nino wanders on. He meets Raph again standing outside the door to his friend’s house. ‘Are you here for the surprise party too?’ he asks. Sofian (William Lebghil) opens the door to let Raph in. ‘There’s someone with me,’ Raph adds. ‘Oh,’ says Sofian to Nino, his surprise having been spiked. ‘Come in.’

Over the course of the party, Nino kisses his best friend’s sister, Lina (Estelle Meyer) after administering an injection to help her conceive, shares his diagnosis with Sofian, who in turn quotes a podcast, ‘it’s not if you are going to get cancer, but when’, as well as citing philosopher, Alain (‘it’s important to get started’), gets his nails painted black, teaches Sofian how to demand that his guests not smoke in the kitchen (they are inconsiderate given Nino’s diagnosis; Nino has quite the roar) and discusses the merits of burning money with Sofian’s colleague Chloé (Nahéma Ricci). Chloé wants to establish a national day for marking wage inequality between men and women, setting bank notes on fire to protest the shortfall. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to donate them to charity?’ Nino asks. He slips out of the party without saying goodbye, having first shared his diagnosis with two of his colleagues, who work with him in product certification, ensuring tested items meet the four ‘s’s (satisfaction, safety …  forgot the other two). Returning to his apartment building, he finally meets the concierge.

What happens next puts his own situation into relief. It concludes with him taking his birthday present, a cushion with a photo of Nino and his father on it – but not his key – out of the concierge’s office and using it as a pillow to sleep outside his front door.

Mathieu Amalrac, one of the most recognisable of contemporary French actors, makes a surprise cameo, when Nino visits a washhouse near his home. Amalrac plays an older man who loans Nino a hair dryer to ensure that the label on his empty sperm sample jar remains legible. The stranger, a widower, shows Nino a photograph of his wife, Nino making yet another acquaintance with death. The stranger retrieves his hair dryer in an abrupt manner, as if embarrassed of having exposed his broken heart. It is a poignant, edgy scene – we briefly wonder if the stranger is gay. It presents the messiness of grief, the lack of resolution – despair.

Pictured: 'I have a baby cook.' Zoe (Salomé Dewaels) in a scene from the French drama, 'Nino', written and directed by Pauline Loquès. Still courtesy of Curzon (UK)

Honouring his commitment to visit the flea market on Sunday, Nino reconnects with Zoe and Solal. Alas, Nino was too late to buy her baby clothes. Instead he chooses a walkie talkie set. ‘That’s four euros,’ he is told. Nino only has two euro in coins. ‘We take cards’, Solal adds. However, Zoe settles for the lower price. She offers him her baby cook, which she keeps in her apartment. In the process, a dinner set is shattered. Nino confesses that he is not expecting a child, that he did not know what to say to her. He tells her about his concierge, which in turn provokes laughter. Zoe doesn’t throw Nino out. Instead, Nino watches Solal as he draws a winter snow shower, cutting out the snowdrops and releasing them over Nino. He stays for dinner and discovers why she never appeared in any school photographs. She shares her admiration of Marina Abramović (she has her poster on the wall) and simulates her staring exhibit. There is the matter of generating a sperm sample. Using the walkie talkie and a novel by Anaïs Nin, Zoe has an idea.

In the most poignant scene, Nino is invited to tell Solal a story – the excited young boy cannot sleep. Nino describes a young boy who invited butterflies into his room and who learned to set them free. The French word for butterfly is papillion; Nino is obliquely referring to his own papillion carcinoma. By the end of scene, Nino has resolved to set himself free. ‘You know where I am if you need me,’ Zoe tells him.

There is a moment of dry humour when Nino presents his sample at a late-night hospital emergency room. It has to reach reproductive services within the hour. ‘Keep it in your pocket. There are children here,’ a security guard tells him. By Monday morning, Nino discovers that he has a loyal and understanding friend, who ‘rang every hospital’.

‘In the modern world/I don’t feel anything,’ sings the vocalist of the band Fontaine DC over the end credits. By the end, Nino does establish connections with people and rediscovers a zest for life. Nino is an uplifting film that reminds us that even in our most desperate moments we are never alone. Talking is important. Talking helps.

Reviewed at Screen One, Curzon Westgate, Canterbury, Southern England, Friday 19 June 2026, 14:40 screening

Also Curzon Aldgate, City of London, 11 February 2026 (Glasgow Film Festival preview day)