After years of immense admiration for the Cannes Film Festival, which premiered such masterpieces as “Taxi Driver,” “Pulp Fiction,” “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and “Anora,” I attended the world’s most prestigious film fest for the first time this year! I saw 9 films over the 4 days I was there. This post is the last within a series of three Cannes 2026 Recaps, each reviewing 3 films. The following covers “Coward,” “Gentle Monster,” and “Paper Tiger.”
Coward (Lukas Dhont, Belgium – In Competition)
Lukas Dhont’s latest movie follows Pierre, a shy Belgian soldier in World War I who struggles with maintaining his will power, becoming increasingly cautious and avoidant of warfare as the story progresses. Meanwhile, fellow soldier Francis begins a crossdressing theatrical troupe to boost troop morale, eventually growing it into an army-wide enterprise, touring Europe to entertain allied troops. Amidst this, the two fall in love.
This film is much like 2023’s “American Fiction,” in that it has an A story and a B story, and for some odd reason doubles down on the far less interesting B story at every turn. I loved the A story in “Coward,” a challenging and thematically profound exploration of a man caught between the justified yet, well, cowardly desire of self-preservation, to the detriment of his commitment to his country. The film’s best scenes all entail Pierre finding ways to circumvent combat and the guilt he feels over that. Unfortunately, that’s about 25% of the movie. The rest is this incredibly outlandish theatre troupe drudge that was absolutely dreadful to sit through. I saw an interview in which Dhont explained he based the troupe off an archival photo he found of male WWI soldiers smiling in women’s clothes. Yet I sincerely doubt that photo was anything more than a candid of a single event, not a document of a wildly successful, long-running troupe that attracted the highest of military generals. I could never connect to this plotline because of how asinine it was. Furthermore, even if I could buy into it, it simply wasn’t interesting. It’s just scene after scene of a self-aggrandizing Francis ranting to Pierre about how “important we are” as they play the same show over, and over, and over again. I found Francis incredibly unlikable and absolutely irritating to listen to; it’s such a loud, in-your-face performance fueled by clumsy writing. As a result of how poorly written the theatre troupe plotline and Francis were, I fundamentally rejected the central romance because it was so tied to it.
If the film were a stark, grey area portrayal of, well, a coward during war, it would be magnificent. When the movie actually does go there, it’s utterly engrossing. Yet the central romance failed to compel me, and at its heart that’s really what the film is about, to its immense detriment.
C
Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer, Austria – In Competition)
The most underrated film at Cannes, “Gentle Monster” follows Lucy Weiss (Léa Seydoux), a French pianist living in Munich with her husband Philip and their son. When Philip is arrested by police on charges of possession and distribution of sexual materials featuring children, Lucy must reckon with who to trust, and how to move forward. I found this premise to be one of the most interesting at Cannes, though director Marie Kreutzer’s extreme European detachment certainly hampers the potential of the film. Simply put, the story and characters are too lowkey for their own good. Yet despite that faulty approach, the film succeeds. It asks questions of how well we truly know our partners, and how much denial we put ourselves in to ignore the evils of those we care about (in Philip’s case, the single greatest evil). Kreutzer certainly challenges the audience’s patience and sympathy, as Lucy frustratingly accepts excuse after excuse from Philip when his guilt could not be more evident. Yet the film keeps us in Lucy’s troubled perspective so we can reflect on the delusions and false personas people adopt. I appreciate films that challenge the audience and go the extra mile.
What ties it all together, though, is Léa Seydoux. She delivers one of her finest performances here, perhaps the best since “Blue is the Warmest Colour.” She is incredibly subdued, storing so much anguish, rage, and exhaustion and not fully releasing it until the final act. It’s a deeply human performance, one with so much authenticity that you almost feel apologetic for spectating what appears real.
So while this is certainly slow-burn European fare, “Gentle Monster” remains one of the most nuanced and intellectually stimulating films of the festival and of the entire year so far.
B
Paper Tiger (James Gray, United States – In Competition)
This was the most conventional film I saw at Cannes, yet also one of the festival’s best. Set in 1980s Queens, “Paper Tiger” follows Irwin (Miles Teller) and Hester Pearl (Scarlett Johansson), a working class Jewish couple with two sons. When Irwin’s brother Gary (Adam Driver) proposes Irwin join him in a business opportunity with the Russian mob, the brothers quickly find themself in a world of terror that endangers the entire family.
Though the film is certainly full of contrivances, its fast-paced melodrama and confident direction generally compensate for the movie’s flaws. Watching this two-hour downward spiral as the brothers continue to make their situation worse and worse was absolutely riveting, leading to a nail-biting final shootout. The film is also enhanced by its strong sense of Jewish identity. As a New York Jew, I caught all the cultural references, dialect, Yiddish slang, and even kitchen utensils that further flesh out the characters and the world they reside in. By the time you leave the theater, you feel as if you’ve known the Pearl family for a decade, not simply a couple hours. That wonderful humanism and sense of character separate “Paper Tiger” from the forgettable thriller, and make for an emotionally striking experience. Albeit a ridiculous one.
B+