Love Letters is a film that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Written & directed by Alice Douard, the film stars Ella Rumpf, Monia Chokri, and Noémie Lvovsky. France 2014, Céline, 32, is awaiting the arrival of her first child. But Céline isn’t pregnant. In three months, it’s her wife Nadia who will give birth to their daughter. By law, Céline must gather testimonies assuring she will be a competent parent to adopt the child. While doing so, she will confront her own definition of what a ‘good mother’ is.

As I started watching this, I began to realize why I love foreign films so much. As someone who wants to travel the world more, foreign films give me the opportunity to see other parts of the world in the meantime. I began to realize this as I noticed how much life is injected to this film. Set about a decade prior just when France legalized same-sex marriage, it’s hard to believe just recent this is. Based on writer & director Alice Douard’s life, she presents importance with bringing her real-life story to the big screen.

The film wastes no time getting us familiar with the main couple we follow and the legal hurdles they have to endure even though same-sex marriage was legalized. After getting legally married, Céline has to understand how to ensure she stays the mother of her unborn child with her wife. As she learns more, she realizes it’s not as easy as it may appear to be. One slip, she could no longer be her mom. On top of that, she is still having to deal with the way others look at her as they struggle with understanding how it all works between her own mother and random strangers.

Ella Rumpf as Céline turns in one of the best performances I have seen this year. By the end of this year, she may still be in my top 10 performances. It is so easy to connect with this character. She is patient with people like her mom to help her understand the procedure as well as to understand how her own mom treated her. It becomes a full circle moment as Céline has to struggle with understanding what kind of mother she wants to be. With so many obstacles in her way and still having to put on a brave face every day, her performance is consistently wonderful from start to finish.

With a runtime around 90-minutes, it’s impressive how well paced this is. It tackles so many themes that help Céline on her journey to become the mother she is destined to be. The overall look and feel of this has a feel-good nature to it reminiscent to comedy. It can be funny at times, but it can also be quite emotional at the right times. There are even some moments that I found to be visually pleasing. There’s so many moments that made me happy that I want to talk about, but it’s best for you to see it to experience what I felt without giving away any spoilers.

The only thing that I think may hold it back is within its structure and plot beats. While the information is interesting and Ella Rumpf gives a terrific performance, it’s easy to be reassured what kind of movie it will ultimately become. The story can be unpredictable at times and the end result is satisfying, but the structure there can feel familiar.

Overall, Love Letters is a crowd-pleasing feature anchored by a tremendous performance from Ella Rumpf. There is so much information to learn from this that makes it even more interesting. The journey from start to finish is worth exploring, even if the path there does feel familiar.

VERDICT: 4/5 (Great)