When a filmmaker takes over directing duties after a movie’s original helmer has passed away, many viewers will be inclined to wonder what could have been if that particular lost voice had stayed involved to the finish line. Having directed only one scene of “Battle Royale II: Requiem,” Kinji Fukasaku was hospitalized due to complications from prostate cancer, dying a few weeks later; his son Kenta Fukasaku, a screenwriter on both “Battle Royale” films, completed the sequel as his directorial debut. Elsewhere, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” is likely the most famous example of this. Stanley Kubrick reportedly tried handing off his long-gestating sci-fi feature to Steven Spielberg several years before his death, though Spielberg apparently convinced Kubrick to remain as director.
Both “A.I.” and “Battle Royale II” were dedicated to the men who were once set to bring them to fruition. With “Enzo“, the latest feature directed by Robin Campillo (“BPM”, “Red Island”, “Eastern Boys”), tribute to the deceased is paid even more explicitly and right up top. While Campillo is given a ‘Directed by’ credit, what precedes that in the film‘s opening is ‘A film by’ credit for Laurent Cantet, the French director best known for the 2008 Palme d’Or winner “The Class”, who died from cancer in April 2024, three months before the shoot of “Enzo” reportedly began.
Campillo’s boarding of the project was not completely out of the blue. For one thing, he co-wrote the screenplay with Cantet, with whom he had previously collaborated as a writer and editor on several films, including Cantet’s “The Class” and “Time Out.” Early comments ahead of “Enzo’s” premiere at Cannes — as the opening film of Directors’ Fortnight — suggest that Campillo was effectively set to assist Cantet with most aspects of the production, which included casting decisions that were preserved for the final film. Just a few weeks before the start of an originally scheduled shoot is when Cantet’s health deteriorated to the extent that it was decided, with Cantet’s input, that Campillo should now direct.
Despite apparently telling his late collaborator that he’d be incapable of making a film in a recognizably Cantet style, those opening credits make it clear that Campillo still considers “Enzo” to be Cantet’s film. But given that complicated portraits of queer men — particularly young characters like one of the leads in “Eastern Boys” and a majority of the ensemble in “BPM” — have featured more heavily in Campillo’s directing efforts to date than in Cantet’s filmography, it’s not unfair to view the completed version of “Enzo” as just as much a continuation of his voice and preoccupations as a director. A coming-of-age tale (though not really a coming-out story), “Enzo” is Campillo’s first film that isn’t a period piece since he directed “Eastern Boys” over a decade ago, but the specifics of his and Cantet’s modern setting ensure that the new movie will stay associated with a particular time and place as it ages; mainly that the plot is informed by the ongoing war in Ukraine, following Russia’s invasion in 2022.
Campillo got a very fine debut screen performance from a child actor in his prior film “Red Island” and achieves similarly strong results with teenage newcomer Eloy Pohu in “Enzo.” As a 16-year-old living in the South of France who’s frequently disconnected from his surroundings and loved ones, Pohu anchors the film’s emotional power even as some of the writing for his character and his family can verge on vexing vagueness rather than appealing ambiguity.
We meet young Enzo eight months into a masonry apprenticeship where consensus among the experienced builders on the site where he’s gaining practical experience is that he’s not cut out for this field. “I’ve always had apprentices but you’re the sloppiest by far,” he’s told by foreman Corelli (Philippe Petit; not that Philippe Petit). After a visiting client sees a particularly shoddy bit of work on Enzo’s part, Corelli insists on driving Enzo home to have a word with his parents. Vocally enraged on the construction site, Corelli gets very quiet quickly when they pull up to Enzo’s home: a gated, uphill, swanky-looking villa with at least three levels and a swimming pool that stretches around most of the property. Not the sort of home you’d expect for most teenagers pursuing a masonry apprenticeship (Corelli humbly asks the boy if he should remove his shoes upon entering), though how active an effort Enzo is actually making is part of the problem.
Interrupted during a pool session, Enzo’s parents, Marion (Élodie Bouchez) and Paolo (Pierfrancesco Favino), meet with Corelli indoors. Rather than being stereotypical rich parents taking offense to suggestions that their spoiled child is a nuisance, they welcome Corelli’s pragmatic explanations of what Enzo could be doing better. The surprise is that this apprenticeship isn’t something they’ve pushed on Enzo. It’s in fact something that he has actually insisted on doing after basically dropping out of a more traditional education. Paolo, in particular, seems to actively disapprove of this path for Enzo, especially when his apparent lack of skills might lead to physical harm.
It’s also that Enzo seems to resent his upbringing, or is at least confused about how to navigate life as a bourgeois boy waking up to the scary realities of the world for possibly the first time. One such scary reality is the Ukraine war, which he tries making himself more informed about as a way of bonding with two of the younger men on the building site, Ukrainians Vlad (magnetic newcomer Maksym Slivinskyi) and Miroslav (Vladyslav Holyk). The latter has prior military experience and is facing a call to enlist back home due to being 25. The charismatic former becomes an object of obsession for Enzo as he grapples with his sexuality, attempting to assess if Vlad reciprocates similar feelings even though acting on them would be a crime due to Enzo’s status as a minor.
The respective builds of Enzo and Vlad bring to mind the dynamics of the leads in “Call Me by Your Name” at times, as does one sequence that almost reads as a parody of Timothée Chalamet and Esther Garrel’s hook-up in Luca Guadagnino’s film, wherein Enzo’s ostensible girlfriend Amina (Malou Khebizi) comes round his house and expresses a clear intention to jump his bones, only for Enzo to interrupt and suggest they go swimming. Not to spoil anything but one of the climactic scenes also plays like an echo of one of “Call Me by Your Name’s” most memorable moments, while Campillo regular Jeanne Lapoirie’s cinematography is similarly deft at making you feel the scorching heat of the perpetual sunshine — curiously, though, this is a film relatively light on visible sweat, despite the setting and all the manual labor on display.
Where “Enzo” is less successful in comparison to Guadagnino’s related film, and indeed some of Campillo’s own earlier works, is sticking the landing with its third act as a whole. The ease with which some of Enzo’s public outbursts avoid clear social and professional repercussions — especially one involving a threat of violence in a crowded setting — becomes frustrating, while some of the seemingly more important supporting players lack a certain specificity; Enzo’s older brother is particularly underdeveloped.
But then the very last scene makes up for a lot of these misgivings: it’s a beautifully bittersweet last beat for the film’s theme of finding camaraderie in the uncertainty of life. For Campillo, it’s one of his greatest scenes as a director. For Cantent, it’s a fitting final statement.
Grade: B
“Enzo” opened the 2025 Directors Fortnight at Cannes. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
