Cannes 2025: Tell Her I Love Her (dir. Romane Bohringer) | Review

Romane Bohringer’s In the Move for Love was a treasured comedic knockout, celebrated for its relatable domestic humor and heartfelt exploration of family bonds. What makes it even more remarkable is her dual role as both star and director, showcasing her implausible versatility. Bohringer ensures that every film she makes bears her imprint, with her core values pulsing through them like capillaries – dynamic, personal, and thriving – embodying the phrase “that’s my film” in a deeper, more resonant manner. She officiated her Cannes arrival with the Special Screenings film Tell Her I Love Her, where a 360-degree shift of genre occurs, pinning her own memories to the figure humans tend to value most – mothers.

Bohringer becomes fascinated by a book written by Clémentine Autain, a politician who reflects on her own mother, a woman who left her with many painful memories. It’s a shuddering flash for Bohringer, as each page brings out her own recollections of her mother – also imperfect, also haunting – and she thinks: this is no coincidence. In adapting Autain’s book, she merges past and present, crafting not just a film but a “movementary” – an evolving meditation on memory that breaks open into clarity, liberation, and the quiet thunder of understanding.

Bohringer’s directorial lens feels like a behind-the-scenes portrayal in full view, unraveling images of the mind with hints of raw reality – blurred focal points at the edges feel like direct extractions from brain cells projected onto the screen. Watching both Bohringer and Autain, we witness two women laying bare their deepest wounds – each memory revealing the emotional wreckage of a fractured mother-daughter bond, a relationship so corrosive it shears the mind, piece by fragile piece. An invisible voice whispers through the narrative, filled with longing, anger, fear, and love – visualizing memory and unearthing the girl she once was: alive and luminous. Bohringer portrays the expectations children place on their mothers – the longing for their care to align with their needs – and how the early idolization can become tarnished, leading to traumatic reminiscences. The screenplay moves back and forth, placing depression at the core – as both symptom and cause – of vulnerability, and portraying a woman who overcompensates, polishing herself into an ideal of maternal perfection for her child.

Bohringer’s performance isn’t just acting; it’s a self-excavation. The film unfolds like an open diary that breaks you – then slowly, tenderly, reattaches the shattered mirrors into an imperfect miracle.

Tell Her I Love Her is undeniably an uplifting new take on abandonment and liberation, echoing the power of cinema within its fragile narrative. Like a therapist’s door left ajar with a camera quietly sneaked in, Bohringer’s honesty and willingness to confront heartbreak and open the chambers of past hatred is captured in a moment that feels like pins throbbing in our hearts, adding up to a frequency in the millions of Hertz. The film sentimentally unravels the many forms of longing, searching for a guiding light to pass through the dark clouds that torment souls abandoned by their mothers. As Bohringer mirrors herself through Autain, she finds answers in Autain’s questions and her own truth in Autain’s doubts – like twin souls intertwined and bound by destiny to realize a profound revelation.

Some memories can’t be erased – only buried. But the right key can unlock a vault filled with undiscovered truths – moments that warm the heart completely.

Our reporters are on the ground in Cannes, France, to bring you exclusive content from the 78th Cannes Film Festival—explore our coverage here.