Love Me Tender

Love Me Tender (2025) is adapted from Constance Debré's 2020 novel, which is largely drawn from the author's own life. At the end of summer Clémence tells her ex husband that she has been with women. He files to take custody of their son. What follows is a legal fight lasting years, in which Clémence has to defend both her right to be a mother and her right to make her own choices. The subject is not who wins the case. What she is up against is not only her ex husband but a legal system built on an assumed definition of motherhood. The film presents this not as an angry manifesto but as an exhausting, repetitive process. The hearings resemble each other, and as time passes the fatigue transfers to the audience. It premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2025 and was nominated for the Queer Palm. Vicky Krieps plays it cold and never asks the audience for sympathy. It runs 134 minutes. Good for: French cinema, drama about law and motherhood, and LGBT stories. Less good for: the film is recent and reaction has not settled. The pace is deliberately slow and repetitive, so anyone wanting a brisk courtroom film will not find it.