Belgian filmmaker wrestles the tenderness and softness between soldiers from the brutality of the battlefield in his visually arresting if thematically by-the-book third feature, “Coward.” Starring newcomers Valentin Campagne and Emmanuel Macchia as achingly beautiful soldiers of the Belgian front in World War I who fall in love and learn to discover that, in one of the most fascinatingly contradictory ideas of Dhont’s highly contradictory career, the violence of war is what both enables and protects their attraction, and allows them to be together at all.
Dhont’s first feature, the trans story “Girl,” upset a lot of people for its brash depiction of self-harm as a method of piercing gender dysphoria; his Cannes-winning follow-up, “Close,” was a celebrated but cloyingly manipulative drama about homophobia-induced adolescent suicide. While “Coward” pulls an emotional cheat in its final stretch with a “happy” ending that appears to try to remake “Carol” without the sophistication of that prior film about secret queer desire, Dhont directs his first-time actors to rousing performances that should help secure this film an eager (though likely younger) LGBTQ audience.
“Coward” is a YA wartime romance made with an adult sensibility and sensitivity, but it’s also an indication that from here on, Dhont should feel encouraged to move on from tales of queer suffering and repression. Tell us something we don’t know.
In 1916, on the western front of World War I, the flamboyant Francis (Valentin Campagne) leads a not-so-merry band of rejects among his infantry, of soldiers whose job it is to entertain and raise the morale of their comrades. In this case, it’s forming a theater troupe of the soldiers in drag as they move from battle to battle, a role that’s become almost as instrumental in keeping spirits high as actual combat is to wearing them down. The withdrawn, ethereally beautiful Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia) becomes drawn into the world of the troupe, and he’s intrigued by the outré Francis’ ostentatious theatricality, and how comfortable he is in dresses and makeup. (Really, Francis is so flamboyant that it’s amazing he made it into the army at all, though this is early 1900s Europe and not 2026 America.)
Through an attraction that’s only allowed to flower because of and in context of their closeness to each other on Francis’ performances, he and Pierre become secret lovers. Pierre, terrified amid another harrowing combat sequence, is so desperate to get himself off the battlefield and to be alongside a visibly wounded Francis, who’s surely about to be taken to the hospital, that he stabs himself in the hand with a bayonet. This buys them a couple of furtive nights together where they have sex — both are nervous, but it seems Pierre has done this before.
Cinematographer Frank van den Eeden captures the messy, fumbling start of first love happening in the shadows with the same lyricism and intensity that he applies to the battlefield — where other soldiers you’ve come to have some affection for will be unceremoniously blown up. The carnage of battle and the aftermaths of bombast and blast-outs contrasts bracingly with the sensuousness of the film’s intimate scenes, though there’s nothing directed about the war scenes that doesn’t feel familiar, which can make “Coward” feel drawn out.
Francis and Pierre start whispering behind closed doors to one another at night, plotting whether or not to flee for a neutral country. But how’s that going to work? It’s not like there’s any place anywhere they could love each other freely — except for, it turns out, in war. But there’s plenty of homophobia to go around here, too, as the higher-in-the-ranks men that Francis and his cohort are assigned to entertain bristle at seeing the men dressed up as women and acting femininely. The drag revue shows themselves aren’t very impressive, but Dhont treats them as such, so you believe what you’re seeing.
As a war movie, “Coward” isn’t especially unique. Nor is it as a queer romance. But how many straight wartime love stories have we seen? This is a lovely, if rather decorous and reverent, tale of an illicit affair that’s unlikely to cause as much noise as Dhont’s last two films. But in this case, that should actually work to its benefit.
Grade: B
“Coward” premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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