Enzo

emoji Enzo, dir. Robin Campillo, 2025, Belgium/France/Italy, 102 min., in French with subtitles and Ukrainian without subtitles
Tuesday, June 23, 2026, 5:30 PM, Vogue Theatre

Enzo (© Les Films de Pierre)

Frameline blurb: You’d think a 16-year-old living on the sun-drenched Côte d’Azur would take advantage of his affluent family’s hilltop villa by enjoying a last carefree summer by the pool before the anxious prospect of university — and the future — looms. But in this richly insightful character portrait of a confused teenager figuring out who he is as an almost-man, Enzo decides to join a construction crew, defying his father’s loftier expectations of him… and bringing him into the magnetic presence of Vlad, an assured, handsome Ukrainian builder fleeing his country’s battlefront. As Enzo’s fascination with Vlad deepens into longing, the youth’s half-formed ideas about masculinity and privilege drive him to the brink of disaster, both with his family and with Vlad.

Told with the same compassion and non-judgmental emotional truth as his ACT UP epic BPM (Beats Per Minute), director Robin Campillo (working from a screenplay by the late Laurent Cantet) has crafted a gay coming-of-age story that embraces more than just a sexual awakening, as Enzo must confront the complex realities of class, exile, war, and what courage really looks like.

My take: Enzo’s confusion is about far more than his sexuality. He’s deeply confused about where he fits into the world, and more importantly where he wants to fit in. He rejects the privilege he was born to, both economically and educationally, and seems driven to prove his masculinity, his independence, and his ability to be his own man, whatever that means. We don’t peer inside Enzo’s mind, leaving us to piece together what he might be thinking from his sometimes contradictory actions, with no easy answers. There are many layers to peel back, but the film brings you along for that journey. It’s well done, with fine performances from newcomer Eloy Pohu as Enzo and from the rest of the cast. Highly recommended.

Note about subtitles: two of Enzo’s co-workers are from Ukraine, and some of their conversations are in Ukrainian without subtitles, although the important bits are then summarized when one of them translates the gist for Enzo. You won’t miss much by losing those bits of subtitles.

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