LES FEMMES AU BALCON (The Balconettes)(France 2024) **
Directed by Noémie Merlant

This horror comedy is the writing and directorial debut of the actress Noémie Merlant, who starred in the hot French film PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE

The word balconette in English could mean either a little balcony or a type of bra with light to medium support to enhance cleavage.   But the BALCONETTE in the English title of the French film refers to the women on the balcony, as is the direct translation of the French title LES FEMMES AU BALCON  The three ladies are Elise, Ruby and Nicole.

Noémie Merlant plays Elise, dressed like Marilyn Monroe, and the other two ladies on the balcony are an online sex worker Ruby Souheilia Yacoub), and an aspiring novelist Nicole (Sanda Codreanu).  Things get out of hand when they invite themselves to a neighbouring hunk’s room.  The ladies get to dance, drink and do really stupid things, which in film terms means they get unguent in the director’s fantasies.

A current heat wave in France sees extremely high temperatures around France, including Marseilles, where the story is set.

LES BALCONETTES begins with a slow, wide and long pan of the balconies in a Marseilles neighbourhood.  Just as one might think, things might go too slow, a black woman takes a steel pan to the head of her husband, causing him to bleed badly and crawl to the balcony where she eventually sits on him, suffocating him.  As a fellow neighbour eyes a nude man on his balcony and begins masturbating, she is rudely interrupted by the black woman who had just murdered her husband.  LES BALCONETTES is describes as a horror comedy, and one wonders if he film can match its eye opening beginning. 

Apparently not. 

The film title refers to the three female roommates who live in a building with a balcony, which they frequent.  They often stare out at other balconies or apartments.  They see one male hunk who they nickname Paul, a Gucci kind of hunk.  Paul has long hair, walks around semi-nude, smokes cigarettes, and drives the three females sex-crazy.

So what do females do when they have nothing to do?  Drink, talk about men, masturbate, and talk dirty.  The three girls do just that, resulting in a comedy that is not only unfunny but boring and quite distasteful.  Whatever happened to the black woman at the beginning of the film who had just murdered her husband?  Obviously, this rather interesting part of the story is totally omitted during the rest of the movie.

Unfortunately, all the lady antics are not only self-indulgent but boring and very slanted towards a female audience.  A few attempts of being politically correct are largely left to go nowhere.  The story picks up a little in the second half, but interest in these three characters is lost already.

LES FEMMES AU BALCON (The Balconettes) premiered at Cannes in 2024 and opens at the TIFF Lightbox for a limited run.

Trailer: