‘Amantes’ examines desire, insecurity, and commitment in relationships

Amantes appears to be a soft romance at first glance, but quickly unfolds into a study of vulnerability and emotional responsibility.

On Jan. 7, The Screening Room ran Amantes (2025) as the closing feature film for the 27th annual ReelOut Queer Film Festival. The French lesbian romantic drama comedy was written and directed by Caroline Fournier, a French screenwriter who made her debut with this film.

On the surface, Amantes presents itself as an intimate portrait of queer love, but beneath the soft aesthetic lies a complex examination of desire, insecurity and the emotional labour needed to sustain a long-term relationship.

Amantes opens on the character Nour, a young woman who believes she’s ready for love but simultaneously struggles to love herself. Though only a few weeks old, Nour’s relationship with Camille is marked with intensity and projection. Nour’s gestures, such as making breakfast in bed, gifting Camille a diamond heart necklace, and expressing certainty about Camille as “the one”—are sweet but heavy with expectation, which overwhelms Camille.

The film encapsulates how quickly affection can turn into fixation, especially when self-esteem is fragile. When Camille is warned by one of Nour’s exes about her past infidelity and instability, there is an emotional rupture that feels like an inevitability.

In the same timeline, we have Laura, who is in a polyamorous relationship with Rebecca and Ophélie. Laura longs for reassurance, proof of commitment, as well as motherhood. Rebecca remains hesitant about both committing to and having children. The tension between them is framed as a collision of incompatible needs, rather than moral failure.

The film’s loosely narrated by Ruby, a podcast host who is married to Gabrielle, a therapist who’s professionally and ethically tangled with several focal characters of Amantes. Ruby’s podcast guides themes of the film, while her marriage becomes increasingly unstable as Gabrielle’s ideas about commitment evolve.

The issues in Ruby and Gabrielle’s relationship come to a head when Ruby discovers Gabrielle’s emotional involvement with Maeva, one of her patients. Rather than sensationalizing this breach in boundaries, this film presents it delicately as an instance of desire overwhelming expected roles and structure.

Amantes refuses to cater specifically to the male gaze. While sexual intimacy is very present in this film, it’s treated as experiential rather than performative. All the focal relationships are between women, and queerness isn’t positioned as a spectacle or the central point of the film, but is treated as a lived reality.

The interconnected nature of the characters reinforces this sense of community, potentially suggesting that intimacy echoes outwards, not only affecting people directly involved, but also those around them.

While the film is committed to represent different forms of love, it can feel unfocused and confusing at times, due to the volume of characters and plot points. Some dilemmas the characters face feel diluted and partially unresolved, and the buildup to the conflict partially outweighs the resolution. This makes some of the storylines feel slightly hollow and unfinished, even after the film ends.

Despite its downfalls, Amantes does well in articulating its central idea: that love, in all forms, demands to be confronted and faced despite one’s own vulnerabilities. Regardless of the type of relationship, each is depicted to be shaped less by structure and more by the character’s capacity for honesty in their relationships, and their willingness to confront their own vulnerabilities to be fully open to the idea of love and the cost it takes to sustain it.