Berlinale 2025 review: ‘Ari’ – Keeping a heart on your French sleeve

The French have a great term for it: “à fleur de peau.”

Literally, it translates to ‘flowering of skin’; it actually means to be emotionally raw or, more generously, to wear your heart on your sleeve.

For her follow up to Un petit frère (2022), French director Léonor Serraille’s third feature Ari is all about that: not hiding your emotions but exposing them for all to see.

It revolves around the titular trainee teacher (Andranic Manet) who collapses in the middle of a school inspector’s visit. To be fair, the stringy 27-year-old was on the brink of tears the whole time, clearly overwhelmed by the rowdy scamps and fooling himself that he could maintain the 6-year-olds’ attention by teaching them about Surrealist poet Rober Desnos. His poetry; his ties to André Breton; his opium addiction.

As if that wasn’t enough, he gets shat on by a pigeon after writing his resignation letter.

“These are bad times. I’m clearly not up to it – but who is?”

Ari turns to his widowed father (Pascal Rénéric), who is exasperated at his son’s lack of commitment and the fact his kid “ruins and wastes” everything from his job to a former relationship with a certain Irène (Clémence Coullon). He kicks him out of the house, which forces Ari to rekindle relationships with childhood friends he hasn’t spoken to in a while. In doing so, discovers that the ‘enviable’ lives of others are, in some cases, not much better than his own.

From that description alone, Ari sounds like it could be an insufferable Gallic Llewyn Davis (minus the guitar). After all, we’ve all seen plenty of films revolving around disillusioned young men drifting about and waking up to the fact that while societal norms are for sell-outs, they’ve still been sleepwalking through life.

It’s then to Serraille’s considerable credit that her film dodges everything that could have been a potential quarter-life crisis pity party in order to deliver an intimate character study that boasts a level of tenderness and candour few films portray.

It is led by Andranic Manet, who gives a genuinely mesmerising performance. He’s a gentle soul, who has clearly suffered from the loss of his mother, as we see in the opening scene – a tender moment all shot in adoring close-ups by cinematographer Sébastien Buchmann. But rather than head straight for the Freudian, Serraille reveals through every social interaction and occasional flashback that Ari is a frustrating but kind-hearted young man who maintains a childlike wonder about life – as evidenced by the questions he innocently but constantly asks, as well as him considering children “the only people who are more or less normal.”

Perhaps he feels an affinity for them because he has yet to embrace the responsibilities inherent to adulthood himself? Or maybe he is defined by a sense of loss – not just of a parent, but one regarding a life-determining choice he seems haunted by. This comes to light during an evening with childhood buddy Jonas (Théo Delezenne), a bourgeois nuisance who likes to pontificate about left-wingers and “stupid miserabilism” without addressing the silver spoon in his glib gob.

Buttressed every step of the way by a script that offers authentic sounding conversations – so much so they sound improvised – this is open-hearted gem is a poignant ode not only to an unmoored soul but to the difficulties everyone – of any age – can have keeping their hearts on their sleeves when living in 2025. Granted, mileage may vary depending on your affinity for French films that verge on the Rohmerian. However, the sincerity Serraille conveys without dipping into mawkish waters is impressive; it would take a very hardened soul not to be moved by a film championing growth and connection in a world that often feels devoid of these two very precious things.

Ari premiers at the 75th Berlinale in Competition.