Nino Turns a Cancer Diagnosis Into a Wandering, Tender Paris Portrait

Nino | In UK Cinemas Now

Nino is a delicate film, one more meandering and quiet than especially plot driven.

Nino is the feature debut of French filmmaker Pauline Loquès. The film follows its central character who, after being diagnosed with cancer, journeys through Paris to reflect on his situation and also the relationships in his life. Loquès takes her time following her young protagonist as he comes to terms with his new life, in a quiet film that sometimes feels more like documentary than fiction. It premiered during the Critics’ Week of the 2025 Cannes film festival, in which the film’s lead actor, Théodore Pellerin, was awarded the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award.

It entirely makes sense why this film would win the Rising Star Award for the lead performance by Théodore Pellerin. Pellerin performs the titular Nino with a stoicism that widely contrasts the scenario of the film. A majority of this performance can be described as internal, a gradual breakdown as time runs out and decisions need to be made is met with a protagonist who looks to be rather disaffected by his predicament. This decision by both the filmmaker and the actor is an interesting choice that immediately sets the tone and emotion of the entire film. In another director’s hands, this film could be a bleak panic attack, one about fear and delivered with a suffocating energy, but instead what we get is a more meditative experience, delivered not by action but by a single meandering young man.

Pellerin is very impressive in this role, flipping between charm and fear with ease and perfectly striking the humanity of this young man. What he excels at is in a film where the main character encounters a host of people from his past, Pellerin’s Nino reacts to each of them with a different quality without losing the central core of the character. This detail, along with his purposefully awkward physicality, creates a performance that feels human.

Pauline Loquès creates a tone with a surprising amount of charm, one that doesn’t shy away from the comedy even in these serious conversations but never lets the comedy overstay its welcome. Nino is first and foremost an exploration of a man’s struggles in a quickly escalating situation, and opens up an interesting and overall important discussion concerning health in our modern society.

Like previously stated, in another world it could have been a very different film, but Pauline Loquès directs her screen with a confidence in her measured approach, and a large part of achieving this nuanced tone is in the cinematography by Lucie Baudinaud. Baudinaud crafts a collection of images that feel real, whether it be the slight handheld jitter of the camera on close-ups or the wandering distance of the wides. The images created by this filmmaking team are an enhancement on the journey that he is going on.

Nino is a confident debut with a lot of heart and a lot of emotions about serious subject matter without ever losing any sense of hope or humour, instead conveying itself as a character study of one’s life when facing personal conflict and an exploration of the support systems we build around ourselves. Théodore Pellerin proves he has real range here, when compared to his turn earlier this year as the sociopathic fanboy of Alex Russell’s Lurker. Nino is a film that I think may become an underseen gem that many should seek out in the future.

If you want a film that treats a cancer diagnosis without melodrama or manipulation, Nino is worth seeking out in London cinemas now, EyeOnLondon found it a small, humane debut that trusts its audience to sit with quiet rather than crisis.

For more London arts and culture, visit EyeOnLondon at eye-on-london.com

[Image Credit | Blue Monday Productions – France 2 Cinéma]

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