{"id":689091,"date":"2026-05-23T08:09:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689091\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T08:09:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T08:09:18","slug":"coward-review-lukas-dhonts-sensuos-wwi-study-of-gay-repression","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/689091\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Coward’ Review: Lukas Dhont’s Sensuos WWI Study of Gay Repression"},"content":{"rendered":"

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, \u201cCoward<\/a>.\u201d 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\u2019s highly contradictory career, the violence of war is what both enables and protects their attraction, and allows them to be together at all.<\/p>\n

Dhont\u2019s first feature, the trans story \u201cGirl<\/a>,\u201d upset a lot of people for its brash depiction of self-harm as a method of piercing gender dysphoria; his Cannes<\/a>-winning follow-up, \u201cClose<\/a>,\u201d was a celebrated but cloyingly manipulative drama about homophobia-induced adolescent suicide. While \u201cCoward\u201d pulls an emotional cheat in its final stretch with a \u201chappy\u201d ending that appears to try to remake \u201cCarol\u201d without the sophistication of that prior film<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\"'The<\/a> \"BOYZ<\/a> <\/p>\n

\u201cCoward\u201d is a YA wartime romance made with an adult sensibility and sensitivity, but it\u2019s 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\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s forming a theater troupe of the soldiers in drag as they move from battle to battle, a role that\u2019s 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\u2019s intrigued by the outr\u00e9 Francis\u2019 ostentatious theatricality, and how comfortable he is in dresses and makeup. (Really, Francis is so flamboyant that it\u2019s amazing he made it into the army at all, though this is early 1900s Europe and not 2026 America.)<\/p>\n

Through an attraction that\u2019s only allowed to flower because of and in context of their closeness to each other on Francis\u2019 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\u2019s 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 \u2014 both are nervous, but it seems Pierre has done this before.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 where other soldiers you\u2019ve 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\u2019s intimate scenes, though there\u2019s nothing directed about the war scenes that doesn\u2019t feel familiar, which can make \u201cCoward\u201d feel drawn out inside the trenches.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s that going to work? It\u2019s not like there\u2019s any place anywhere they could love each other freely \u2014 except for, it turns out, in war. But there\u2019s 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\u2019t very impressive, but Dhont treats them as such, so you believe what you\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n

As a war movie, \u201cCoward\u201d isn\u2019t 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\u2019s unlikely to cause as much noise as Dhont\u2019s last two films. But in this case, that should actually work to its benefit.<\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n

\u201cCoward\u201d premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.<\/p>\n

Want to stay up to date on IndieWire\u2019s film\u00a0reviews<\/a>\u00a0and critical thoughts?\u00a0Subscribe here<\/a>\u00a0to our newsletter In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings \u2014\u00a0all only available to subscribers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgian filmmaker wrestles the tenderness and softness between soldiers from the brutality of the battlefield in his visually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,54192,336427,134,4695,1689,336428,344,229],"class_list":["post-689091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cannes","tag-coward","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-film","tag-lukas-dhont","tag-movies","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}