The Electric Venus, Obsession, Parallel Stories: what’s new at the cinema this week
What to see in theaters
THE EVENT
THE ELECTRIC VENUS ★★★★☆
By Pierre Salvadori
The essentials
A marvel of comedy as light as it is profound, as mischievous as it is poetic, signed by a Salvadori in a state of grace. An irresistible quartet of actors. Cannes 2026 could not have dreamed of a more beautiful opening!
With La Vénus Electrique, the Cannes festival offered itself a prime opening. Salvadori takes us to the Paris of 1928, where a painter, inconsolable since the death of his wife for whom he feels responsible, will regain a taste for life… thanks to a real-false clairvoyant through whom he believes he is making contact with her. A story of love(s) and lie(s) sublimated by Salvadori’s writing talent. His inventiveness in situations and the virtuosity of mischievously poetic dialogues. His genius in knowing how to manage – in flashbacks and flashforwards – his twists and turns by always revealing at the right time a buried secret which reshuffles the cards of our certainties. But with his ops director Julien Poupard, he also knew how to create a colorful, dynamic image which distances The Electric Venus from any heavy historical reconstruction. An infinite playground for the actors who bring it to life – Pio Marmaï, Anaïs Demoustier, Gilles Lellouche and Vimala Pons in the lead. Four virtuoso soloists with an intoxicating score. The perfect pairing.
Thierry Cheze
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PREMIERE LIKED A LOT
OBSESSION ★★★★☆
By Curry Barker
Little genius of scares and comedy revealed on YouTube, Curry Barker signs here his first “professional” feature film. The story of Bear, a guy who is not very comfortable socially, who cannot declare his love for Nikki, the girl of his dreams, and ends up asking a mysterious stick from the brand “One Wish Willow” that his crush loves him “more than anything in the world”. The wish comes true and it’s crazy love, literally: Nikki, clearly possessed, only has eyes for Bear, to the point that it becomes very, very worrying… The plot is minimalist and the enormous pleasure provided by this mischievous fable about control and consent lies precisely in its art of conciseness. Obsession is that rare bird: an ultra-buzzed film at festivals (from Toronto to Sitges) and which keeps all its promises upon arrival. Like a wish that comes true, yes.
Frédéric Foubert
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FIRST TO LIKE
PARALLEL STORIES ★★★☆☆
By Asghar Farhadi
For his second French feature film after Le Passé, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi revisits Kieslowski’s 6th Decalogue. We follow a novelist who, in search of inspiration, spies on her neighbors across the street, a trio of foley artists for the cinema. She imagines them as husband, wife and lover without knowing what it is like in their “real” lives. And all this will not be without consequences when the young man hired to help her in her daily life becomes passionate about her manuscript and stalks the woman of the trio, triggering irreparable collateral damage. Adam intensely portrays this deceptively gentle “vampire” who symbolizes everything the film expresses around creation and what we steal from others in the name of art. Farhadi is totally in his element throughout a story which, as usual, masterfully constantly shakes up our certainties as spectators, carried by an impressive cast (Virginie Efira, Cassel, Niney, Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve…) which allows another game between the actors they are and the characters they embody.
Thierry Cheze
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ELLA MCCAY ★★★☆☆
By James L. Brooks
Expected in French theaters in January, the new film by the revered master of American comedy James L. Brooks finally found itself trashed on Disney +, given its disastrous results at the US box office. But French critics sang her praises so much that Disney finally decided to release Ella McCay in theaters this May for… two days! A sort of mini happy ending, therefore, which suits the complexion of this Capra-style fable. Or the story of a young politician (marvelous Emma Mackey), who finds herself bombarded overnight as governor of her state, while she also has a lot of problems to resolve with the men in her life. The mischievous dialogues crackle, throughout scenes with a rubbery rhythm which run the risk of always lasting too long. It’s both goofy and adorable, goofy and bubbly. But the film is valuable for its luminous optimism. A humanist comedy tinged with screwball nostalgia.
Frédéric Foubert
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CHAO ★★★☆☆
By Yasuhiro Aoki
Highly noticed at the 2025 Annecy Festival, ChaO by Yasuhiro Aoki confirms the return to form of Studio 4°C (Children of the Sea), before their enjoyable All You Need is Kill, scheduled for May 20, drives home the point. Always quick to dynamite the codes of the tale, the Japanese are making a sort of acid remake of Ponyo on the Cliff, transposed into a universe where humans and marine creatures coexist in a fantasized Shanghai. We follow an ordinary employee thrust into a forced union with a mermaid princess. The film uses hand drawing and ultra-rich settings to navigate between pop magic and crazy comedy. All of this is teeming with little ideas (distortion of faces and bodies; radical changes of scale) launched at a frenetic pace. And despite a slightly dated writing concerning the female character, ChaO ends up winning in its last part, where emotion arises without warning.
François Leger
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FIRST TO MODERATELY LIKED
ELISE UNDER CONTROL ★★☆☆☆
By Marie Rémond
The gesture is ambitious. For her first feature film as a director, actress Marie Rémond chose to address through the prism of comedy the painful subject of the mental burden of women and its corollary, the feeling of imposture to which it gives rise in a world often dominated by a male who does not share. She herself plays her heroine, a young woman evolving in the theater world, stuck in a toxic relationship with a star director and suddenly propelled to the head of a theater troupe, following the sudden death of the man who directed it and of whom she was the assistant. Elise under the influence tells the story of a woman overwhelmed by panic attacks who falters before seemingly embarking on a slow and endless fall. But the ambitious mix of genres unfortunately struggles to hold up in length. And if the film succeeds in arousing sincere and never tearful emotion, it proves less convincing in its moments of pure comedy. We sometimes even have the sensation of finding ourselves in front of a work under construction, with cuts not made during editing, despite the endearing accuracy of the interpretation of its actress-director.
Thierry Cheze
JUNK WORLD ★★☆☆☆
By Takahide Hori
Five years ago, the big surprise caused by Junk Head ended in a bitter taste, a meaningless ending, a universe and a unique form condemned to vanity. Junk World, announced as a prequel to Junk Head, indeed develops the origin of this dystopian world composed of immortal beings, cyborgs and other human soldiers. And yet, the film comes up against the same limits as its predecessor: despite the immense inventiveness of the shots composed by Takahide Hori, the story remains in its infancy, uncertain when it is not simply heavy. Even painful when he enjoys replaying entire sequences identically or almost identically (we imagine a time saving for the filmmaker), simply to illustrate the political pattern of dominants enslaving the dominated until rebels try to overthrow them. Result of the races: a shape which no longer even surprises and a base which still does not take off.
Nicholas Moreno
And also
Abandonment, by Vincent Garenq
Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, by Malcolm Menville
Thirty, by Sébastien Frit and Jérémie Levypon
You are not Ivan Gallatin, by Pablo Martin Torrado
The covers
Dune, by David Lynch
Top Gun, by Tony Scott
Top Gun: Maverick, by John Kosinski
