Cassandre

Hélène Merlin's 2025 French film is set in the countryside in the summer of 1998. Cassandre is fourteen and her body is changing; her family notices, and the way they behave towards her alters almost imperceptibly. Her father puts distance between them, her brother turns sarcastic, and her mother stands somewhere between protecting her daughter and policing her. The film describes adolescence not as the girl's own experience but through the shift in how those around her look at her, and takes its real discomfort from there. It builds no large events; the summer heat, the silences in the house and the things left unsaid are its texture. Period detail stays in the background and no nostalgia is indulged. The young Billie Blain carries the part. Who it's for: viewers who like quiet French drama about adolescence. Who it's not for: anyone expecting plot and resolution; the film describes a condition.