Coward

The opening scenes of Lukas Dhont’s extraordinary third feature introduce an array of newly minted Belgian soldiers in 1916. Like so many young men of the era, they initially approach the front lines not with a feeling of trepidation but a spirit of excitement and freshly forged camaraderie. Of course, the characters of Coward soon wake up to the First World War’s many horrors. Yet, traces of that brighter energy still persist in the uncommonly poignant love story at the film’s centre.

Among those new arrivals in the trenches is Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia), a taciturn farmboy who’s mostly content to blend into the background of his troop. That makes him very different from Francis (Valentin Campagne), the son of a tailor and the enthusiastic lead performer in the ad hoc revues that the most theatrically inclined soldiers stage for their comrades as a welcome distraction. The spark of attraction between the two men leads to another means of escaping the misery and tragedy that surrounds them.

Macchia and Campagne were the very deserving recipients of Best Actor honours from the jury when the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Coward also marks a triumph for Dhont, who makes the shift to the much larger scale of a period drama without losing the sense of intimacy, specificity, and humanity that distinguished his Camera d’Or winner Girl (TIFF 2018) and Close (2022), which followed its own Cannes success with an Academy Award nomination. The grace, beauty, and tenderness that the director captures here all make Coward a film to be treasured.

JASON ANDERSON

Content: mature themes (war trauma), nudity, violence, sexual content (innuendo, sexually suggestive scenes)