‘In A Whisper’ review: Hiam Abbass is magnetic in sensitive Tunisian LGBTQ drama

Dir: Leyla Bouzid. France/Tunisia. 2026. 112 mins

The return of Lilia (Eya Bouteraa) from France to the Tunisian coastal city of Sousse for her uncle Daly’s funeral marks the start of Leyla Bouzid’s artfully layered interrogation of identity, and familial and cultural expectations. The film unfolds over six days of mourning, and an impeccable ensemble cast and a vivid sense of time and place allow for a nuanced exploration of relationships under pressure; not just from personal prejudice, but also from wider social constraints.

A nuanced exploration of relationships under pressure

Playing in Berlin competition, In A Whisper’s female-centric consideration of LGBTQ themes gives it a fresh angle that should open the door to further festival play and potential arthouse distribution.

It is made clear early on that Lilia is in a committed lesbian relationship with Frenchwoman Alice (Marion Barbeau), as we see the pair travel together before Alice is dropped off at a hotel. That same-sex relationships remain criminalised in Tunisia is just one of the reasons Lilia has kept the truth about her sexuality from her middle-class family. The secret has led to her visiting her homeland less frequently, so she’s welcomed with open arms by her mother Wahida (a magnetic Hiam Abbass, who also appears in Panorama title Only Rebels Win), aunt Hayet (Feriel Chamari) and grandmother Néfissa (veteran director Salma Baccar – Flower of Oblivion, El Jaida – making a rare but impressive on-screen appearance).

Bouzid, who has previously displayed her knack for relationship dramas with 2021 Cannes Critics’ Week closer A Tale Of Love And Desire and 2015’s As I Open My Eyes, takes an ambitious approach in both story and technique. While chiefly a character study of Lilia, the drama is driven by the mystery surrounding the death of Daly, apparently by natural causes; although his body was found naked in the street. While the family are busy closing ranks in the house they once shared – whose interior becomes a character in its own right – Lilia digs deeper into what happened and begins to realise she may not have been the first member of her clan to have led a double life.

The sense of layers sloughing away is enhanced by Bouzid’s treatment of Lilia’s childhood memories. They periodically become a tangible physical presence in the present – the first time through the elegant use of a glance in a car rear-view mirror which lets Lilia observe her childhood self chattering with her cousins in the back seat about their uncle. This device of unexpectedly introducing figures from the past, most notably Daly (Karim Rmadi), is sparingly but effectively employed. The approach from Bouzid and her regular cinematographer Sébastien Goepfert is intimate, particularly within the confines of the family home – which was shot in the house of Bouzid’s own grandmother. 

Bouzid’s screenplay pays attention to all her characters and offers delicate shades of feeling rather than a simplistic dichotomy. Lilia’s relationship with her mother is warm and yet the unspoken secrets hang in the air. Wahida’s complex reaction to unfolding events is shaped as much by what she knows they will mean to outsiders as by her personal opinion. Alice is also fully fleshed out, with tensions over whether Lilia should tell her parents the truth about their relationship balanced by moments of eroticism, fuelled by strong chemistry between Bouteraa and Barbeau.

The writer-director also finds the space to explore wider society, with the attitude of the police force emphasised by a late-night encounter with a traffic cop. Throughout, the jazz-inflected score from French clarinetist Yom adds a mellow but melancholic grace note. The wide-ranging themes and number of characters involved lead to a series of multiple endings, but Bouzid makes sure we are sufficiently invested to make all of them equally important.