'Diane In the Loop’ review: Quirky Belgian drama confronts the legacy of sexual violence

Dir: Ann Sirot, Raphaël Balboni. Belgium/France. 2026. 92mins

Diane (Ninon Borsei) may not hate individual men until they give her a reason (which they frequently do), but she’s very clear-eyed about patriarchy in the round: it gives cover to monsters and airbrushes lapses of judgement in otherwise more-or-less decent guys. When a family secret comes to light, Diane’s principles collide with her pragmatism, causing her to reflect on her own attitudes to relationships. Humanity is the watchword in this brisk and engaging drama.

It’s not a tough watch, though it is interested in tough questions

As with the Dardenne brother’s best work (they produce here alongside Marianne Productions), the often serious subject matter doesn’t prevent Brussels-based directing duo Ann Sirot and Raphaël Balboni – whose quirky comic drama The (Ex)perience of Love bowed in Cannes Critics’ Week in 2023 - from finding softness and humour in the characters’ lives. Diane In the Loop is fundamentally a character study, foregrounding individuals who are three-dimensional and treated with compassion, and could see further festival play following its premiere in Venice Horizons.

Foremost amongst these is Diane, a forthright young woman with a firm sense of what is – and more importantly is not – owed to men in her personal relationships. She also has the guts to follow through on her convictions: an inventively choreographed nightclub hook-up turns sour, after a certain amount of lively intercourse, when she proclaims herself satisfied and rolls over to sleep. Her partner is shocked and annoyed: he wasn’t finished. With the atmosphere poisoned, she decides to leave – though not before pointing out how many men are perfectly happy to call it quits once they are satisfied. 

Diane’s enjoyably blunt refusal to baby a man through her decision (the “oh darling, I would, but have a headache” approach) or to be coerced into further sex that she doesn’t want establishes her as relatively fearless. What follows is a nuanced breakdown of some of Diane’s certainties, as she discovers that male violence has hidden repercussions in her own life. When she learns that her mother was raped at the age of 19, she wrestles as much with her mother’s decision to keep the attack secret as with the fact of the assault itself.

Diane In the Loop is a more naturalistic film than The (Ex)perience Of Love, in which a couple had to track down and have sex with everyone they had ever slept with in order to resolve an infertility issue. Nevertheless, there’s a common theme – how a person’s sexual past might impact their present – and a common approach: no matter how dark or light the premise, people are people, capable of a range of emotional registers regardless of what they are going through.

Diane’s mother (Sandrine Blancke), for example, is marked by what happened to her, without being written as a broken woman. In the aftermath of the assault, she abandoned her studies, which she now seeks to resume. There is still romance in her life. Yet it clearly affects her to this day. This is a nervy but supple performance from Blancke, which avoids the usual clichés of such roles.

Similarly, in the wake of his father’s death, Diane’s current romantic interest (Lucas Meister) must confront some home truths. The film shows us the complexity of his doubts, and how they intermingle with betrayal, disbelief and disgust.

It’s rare to see a will-they-won’t-they romance play out around a parent’s past sexual assault. On the face of it, this wouldn’t seem to make for a particularly commercial film, but while the effect the rape has had isn’t minimised, the focus on present-day lives rather than the grim facts of the decades-ago crime keeps our attention on the women, rather than mired in the actions of a man who is beneath contempt. It’s not a tough watch, though it is interested in tough questions, allowing audiences to draw their own conclusions.