Karlovy Vary 2025: Out of Love (dir. Nathan Ambrosioni) | Review
A quiet storm of emotion and responsibility, Out of Love is a tender, restrained, and deeply human portrait of unexpected motherhood and the fragile bonds that slowly grow in its wake.
How does one react when suddenly thrown into the role of motherhood? Or given a huge responsibility to take care of young children when you are a workaholic and know nothing beyond work? Leading in with these questions is the film Les enfants vont bien (Out of Love).
In Out of Love, 25-year-old director Nathan Ambrosioni, who calls himself a queer filmmaker, delivers a tender, quietly devastating portrait of unexpected motherhood, abandonment, and the slow rebuilding of familial ties. With a confidence far beyond his years, the young French director crafts a film that feels both intimate and expansive, holding its emotional core with a gentle but unflinching grip.
The story is about two sisters, Suzanne and Jeanne, their estranged relationship, and Suzanne leaving her two young children behind with Jeanne (played beautifully by French actress Camille Cottin), suddenly. It is about coping with the idea of an instant family, rebuilding trust, and reconnecting. This film offers a fantastic emotional exploration, weaving together responsibility and the fragility of what life offers.
This story is about creating a bond between estranged relatives—about bridging the gap that so often forms due to the tardiness and bureaucracy of gaining permissions and legal ownership. As workaholic Jeanne struggles to cope with the sudden responsibility of raising the children (she never wanted her own, which led to separation from her partner of 12 years), the audience gets to be part of the ongoing struggle of a ‘single mother’—from brushing their teeth to making food and facing the awkwardness of handling simple issues and tasks.
The film captures the essence of the struggle with its slick, stylish editing and its shot composition, giving us a minimalistic view into the world of a new mother. Ambrosioni’s direction allows space for silences, glances, unspoken words, and hesitations to show us the discomfort and gradual change in Jeanne’s precise style of work and life.
Often the audience might think of Suzanne as a bad mother, but through Jeanne, we begin to understand why she might have done what she did. Jeanne’s journey into motherhood—her crosscurrents of emotion: grief, resentment, and affection—shows her as a vulnerable human being, and more so, a woman accepting this role with dignity.
The two children—9-year-old Gaspard (Manoâ Varvat) and his little sister Margot (Nina Birman)—are fantastic actors. Their confusion, fear, and efforts to find a hook to cling to familiarity are entirely believable.
What makes this film remarkable is that it doesn’t rely on dramatic plot twists or heavy sentimentality. Its power lies in its restraint, in storytelling by a director who is more interested in observing than explaining. He trusts the audience to feel, rather than be told what to feel.
The title itself feels like a gentle contradiction, suggesting both a lack and a source. In Suzanne’s case, she acts not because she is full of love at the outset, but because love begins to grow out of the act of showing up. It’s this slow, uneasy blossoming that is so beautifully captured by the film.
We are thrilled to be reporting directly from the Czech Republic at the 59th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
