On the southern tip of France sits town called La Ciotat, populated with both plush villas owned by wealthy people, and the working class migrants who help build them. At the centre of this is Enzo, a talented 16-year-old artist who wears Corteiz T-shirts, listens to rap music, and flirts with girls. He’s shunned his upper-middle class family’s wishes for an academic career to pursue construction, crossing the class barrier. To them, his lack of interest in success is a betrayal, Enzo, however, at that age where the right thing to do is his least interesting prospect.
There’s also the matter of Vlad. Vlad, a little older, is a Ukrainian migrant working on the construction site with him. In Vlad Enzo finds what feels like a lifelong friend and companion, but there’s a feeling bubbling beneath the surface Enzo can’t quite make sense of, and the lingering threat of his departure: Vlad plans to return home to fight in the war.
Robin Campillo is a director known best for his 2017 masterwork 120 Beats per Minute, a compelling drama about the AIDS activists of ACT-UP in late 20th century Paris. Campillo is good at making movies that toe the line of class and queerness Enzo isn’t as severe as 120 BPM, it’s a little softer and subtler in its romance, one that feels blushing, beautiful and morally complex.
It might feel redundant to say, but there are shades of Call Me by Your Name to it, albeit this has a slightly more class-critical perspective.. There’s chest hair and short shorts and blaring sunshine and age gaps and pool water, and the constant sound of cicadas. It’s atmospheric but doesn’t feel as closed off to the outside world as Luca Guadagnino’s film does. Instead there are external stakes.. It’s about the strange blurred line between wanting to be someone, and be inside them.
The film is directed by Campillo, but opens with the interesting credit: ‘A Film by Laurent Cantet’. Last spring, Cantet (the screenwriter) died of cancer halfway through the production of the film. Enzo feels like a harmonious mix of its two creators; Cantet straight, Campillo gay. To lead it, they cast a newcomer: Eloy Pohu. Pohu has a background as a competitive swimmer, but has never acted before. Watching him, you wouldn’t know: he wears the film’s anger and uncertainty on his face.
While the film is nominated for the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it resists falling into the trappings of a queer romance, partially because the label seems too straightforward for it. Enzo is a film about the weirdness of growing up and into yourself as a young man, and how first loves affect you. It’s muscular and ambiguous and sore in all the right spots.
‘Enzo’ premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2025