Up close, the vast expanse of the human skin resembles an unknown landscape, maybe similar to the lunar terrain, with craters and elevations in the form of minuscule blemishes, hairs, and cutaneous eruptions. It’s fitting then, that a movie about physical touch — both desired and non-consensual — and about how the body stores trauma without an expiration date, opens with an extremely close pan over the naked back of its young protagonist.
The achingly poignant French drama “The Blow” (aka “La Frappe“) from first-time director Julien Gaspar-Oliveri, begins with an uneasy, but hopeful reconnection between a estranged father and his teenaged son and builds up to a visceral gut-punch of a climax. Its impact doesn’t hinge on a late revelation; in fact, the truth about the hurt that lies between these characters is whispered unequivocally throughout, and at one point illustrated explicitly.
And yet, by the time Enzo (Diego Murgia), a kindhearted and still boyish 19-year-old, can no longer conceal what’s been brewing inside him, his reaction still lands with soul crushing force.
The childlike visage of Enzo, with his gap-toothed smile flanked by a pair of prominent ears, acts as the film’s lighthouse. Each time joy crosses his face he radiates an unadulterated sincerity that’s both heartwarming and worrisome. He’s a fragile kid in a cynical world. In Gaspar-Oliveri’s adroit directing hands, young Murgia’s turn convincingly expresses lived-in truthfulness. It’s easy to believe this person inhabits the world because of the verisimilitude that every other actor around him helps construct. That includes Romane Fringeli, playing Enzo’s sister Carla, who is angry that Enzo plans to move their father Anthony (Bastien Bouillon), freshly released from prison, into their apartment.
The instant he picks him up, Enzo hugs Anthony for longer that the latter is comfortable with. Enzo buries his head in his dad’s chest as if looking for refuge. It’s the kind of hug a child might give a parent to prevent them from ever leaving again. It lingers like an unspoken supplication. Few words are exchanged, but Anthony’s cold response says enough about the dynamic at play.
Gaspar-Oliveri’s and cinematographer Martin Rit construct plenty of moments like these revolving around tactile connection, with the camera close to the pores, whether that’s Enzo desperately dragging Anthony’s unconscious body to save his life, or how the adolescent buzzes the adult’s hair in silence as an intimate act of service, and especially the way the siblings sleep together embraced.
Gaspar-Oliveri’s focus on the body as the instrument of communication is the foundation of every scene and the meaning one can mine from them. Early on, just after they first reunite, Anthony and Enzo visit the sea. Dad dives into the water with nonchalant confidence, while Enzo holds his arm shaking in a cowered pose; he claims to be flinching at the temperature, but perhaps he also worries about how his male role model perceives him. Moments later the two rest on the sand, and once again, it’s their physicality that shouts loudly who these men are. Enzo holds his knees close to his body, a protective position that visually signals discomfort, while Anthony lays down with legs stretched taking space with uncaring easy.
Bouillon’s Anthony is a man’s man, rough around the eyes with unapologetic machismo as his default personality. Though he went to prison for financial illicitness, his biggest crime, however, remains hushed up. His children won’t ever forget it, though. Protecting the enshrined image he has of his emotionally distant father, Enzo fabricates a tall tale about Anthony’s long absence. He tells everyone, including his girlfriend Roxane (Héloïse Volle) and her family, he was in Argentine for business. In truth, father and son make a living selling low-cost appliances at local street markets.
Unlike Carla, whose rejection of Anthony is almost inflexible, a disturbed Enzo is willing to relive abhorrent memories in order to feel a closeness with dad. Gaspar-Oliveri doesn’t sensationalize the boy’s behavior but presents it as a devastating consequence of a stunted childhood. Irremediably, rage also manifests physically in Enzo’s life. The brutality he eventually exudes carries as much intensity as his tenderness can.
Enzo punching someone he loves doesn’t respond to malice, but to an instinctual, if unfortunate outburst of unhealed wounds. If one could describe the directorial approach here in a trope-friendly line, it would truly be “he’s showing rather than telling.” Delphine Malaussena’s ominous violin-centric score punctuates moments of tension that collectively lead to a catatonic state for Enzo, once more representing his inner distress as a corporeal impairment.
Gaspar-Oliveri’s “The Blow” is an embodied film, where there are no philosophical discussions about how a person can still love their abuser or the scars that being harmed by someone who should protect you leave on the psyche. Instead, the filmmaker puts the act of touch front and center. If picked apart, the elements that make up “The Blow” are not all that dissimilar from other provocative familial dramas or coming-of-age on-screen propositions, but it’s the rawness of the performances and the deliberate intention to translate somatic sorrow into visual terms that endow it with a special quality.
Grade: B+
“The Blow” premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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