‘Love Letters’ review: Drama charts lesbian couple’s rocky road to parenthood in 2014 France

Dir/scr: Alice Douard. France. 2025. 97mins

The pressures on a French lesbian couple expecting their first child lie at the heart of Love Letters. Alice Douard’s sure-footed 2014-set debut feature paints the couple as pioneers in a country that has just legalised same sex marriage. Sensitively poised between expectation and trepidation, the couple face legal and emotional challenges to assert their fitness as parents.

Doaurd grounds the film in the portrayal of Celine and Nadia as a devoted and affectionate couple

The tender compassion of the storytelling carries a ring of truth that should help this Cannes Critics Week Special Screening gain traction with audiences who supported recent French titles like Audrey Diwan’s Happening (2021) and the Larrieu brothers Jim’s Story (2024). The film also carries a particular resonance at a time when hard-won rights feel under threat. Tandem holds the French rights.

Expanding on themes from Douard’s Cesar-winning short Expecting (2022), Love Letters takes inspiration from the 2013 vote in France’s National Assembly that legalised same-sex marriage. Shortly afterwards, in 2014, Celine (Ella Rumpf) and Nadia (Monia Chokri) are married and preparing to become parents. Nadia is pregnant with their baby, and the law requires Celine to adopt the child. The process involves a considerable degree of personal scrutiny, with Celine having to provide extensive evidence of the couple’s relationship and written testimonials from 15 loved ones who will attest to their desire for the child. It is a process that seems designed to provoke insecurity.

Doaurd grounds the film in the portrayal of Celine and Nadia as a devoted and affectionate couple. They ponder names for the baby, the practicalities of dismantling a pram and we believe their love is strong enough to withstand any of the difficulties that may lie ahead. Nadia is a hard-working dentist, and Chokri gives her the manner of an efficient, practical professional who just gets on with life. Celine is five years younger, a DJ, sound engineer and music producer. Rumpf emphasises her doubts and self reproach, reflecting her character’s fragile legal status.

The need to assemble the written testimonials structures the film around the couple’s encounters with friends and family members. Friends with children seem to delight in sharing war stories of painful contractions, the hell of potty training, the demands of offspring who take over your life. They never seem to want to share the joy. When Celine babysits one adorable little mite, he empties his bowels into the bathwater. 

Celine’s mother Marguerite (Noemie Lvovsky) is a world-renowned pianist, but perhaps not a world-class parent. She seems to regard their relationship as transactional. Celine’s memories of her mother’s absences and emotional distance only fuel concerns about her own legitimacy as a parent. Lvovsky has the presence to convince as someone who robs the room of all its oxygen, but her nuanced performance also conveys the regrets and vulnerabilities of an artist who put work before family life. 

Everything that happens to Celine and Nadia feels like a chilly reality check about the attitudes of others and the threats to their happy family unit. Douard softens those edges with the film’s warm humour and generosity of spirit. The throb and elevated pulse of a bustling Paris provides the background to a story in which the cool formality of legal offices and medical appointments is contrasted with the glow of nightclub dance floors, city streets and family gatherings. The soundtrack marks Marguerite’s influence with performances of Beethoven and Chopin, whilst making a larger nod to Celine’s world with an eclectic mix of rock and electronic tracks from Chapelier Fou, Laurent Dury, Disclosure and La Maison Tellier.