Set in the sweltering 46-degree heat of Marseille, The Balconettes follows three women - Nicole, Ruby, and Elise - who spend their days melting on a sun-drenched balcony and their nights slipping into something darker. Nicole, an aspiring writer, watches life go by while crafting stories she’ll never finish; Ruby, a webcam model, wears her sensuality like armor; and Elise, a free-spirited actress still possessed by her last role as Marilyn Monroe, drifts between her professional ambitions and personal delusions.
A voyeuristic obsession with a mysterious neighbor across the street sparks an encounter that unravels into a night of horror, guilt, and grotesque liberation. From that point onward, the film descends into a fever dream of blood, guilt, and defiance.
“It’s not the summer heat but unrestrained chauvinism that has made their lives a living hell.”
That’s the logline Noémie Merlant, who helms this film both as a director and actor, seems to chase - yet somewhere along the way, she loses the plot, transforming the heatwave into a headache.
A Melting Pot of Styles, None Her Own
This is Merlant’s second feature after Mi Iubita Mon Amour, co-written with Céline Sciamma - yes, the same Sciamma who directed Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Yet, not an ounce of that precision or poetic restraint seeps into Les Femmes au balcon.
The film begins with a murder, circles around another, and ends with the suggestion of many more. It wants to be about liberation, trauma, patriarchy, objectification, and the female body - but ends up being about none of them in particular.
“When you try to talk about everything, your film feels bloated and without context—and you end up talking about nothing.”
Stylistically, Merlant borrows from Hitchcock’s tension (and Rear Window) and Almodóvar’s color palette, and Gaspar Noé’s chaos - but her own voice feels muffled beneath the homage. It’s as though the film can’t decide if it wants to laugh at its horror or be horrified by its laughter.
Considering that Merlant is a French actor who has recently taken a keen interest to sit in the director's chair, notes from her contemporary Mélanie Laurent (who has adopted the same stance albeit successfully) would not go amiss.
Performances Trying to Hold a Crumbling Wall
The performances are the film’s only solid ground. Noémie Merlant herself delivers a controlled yet compelling turn, oscillating between satire and sincerity. Souheila Yacoub, who first stunned audiences in Gaspar Noé’s Climax, embodies chaos with remarkable ease - she’s the pulse that keeps this otherwise erratic film alive.
Sanda Codreanu, meanwhile, is serviceable but unremarkable, caught between the two stronger performances. Together, they form a trio whose chemistry deserves a better script and a steadier director.
A Cause Worth Fighting For, Served Half-Cooked
Merlant’s thematic intentions are noble - raging against patriarchy, violence, and the control of women’s bodies. But The Balconettes doesn’t channel that rage; it drowns in it. It’s a feminist allegory cooked so long it loses flavor.
If feminism were a dish, Merlant has overcooked it - what arrives on the cinematic platter of Les Femmes au balcon is neither nourishing nor memorable.
Verdict
★½ out of 5
A film that mistakes noise for nuance, chaos for courage, and heat for fire. “The Balconettes” could have been a simmering tale of rebellion - but it ends up just being overdone to the extent that it neither posseses any taste or aftertaste.
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