Nino review – time is running out for young man faced with cancer in shrewd sperm sample portrait

After being told he has throat cancer on the eve of his 30th birthday, Nino spends a fraught weekend in Paris in Pauline Loquès’ heartfelt feature debut

F rench film-maker Pauline Loquès makes her feature directing debut with this meanderingly real-time-style portrait of a young man in Paris over a fraught weekend, somewhat in the manner of Agnès Varda’s New Wave classic Cléo from 5 to 7 . It is heartfelt and affecting, if a little flimsy.

Théodore Pellerin plays Nino, a young guy who has never quite got over the death of his dad, and who on the eve of his 30th birthday goes to the doctor due to slight pains while swallowing; he is told he has throat cancer, due to sexually transmitted HPV (or human papillomavirus) which he might have contracted years before. In a state of shock – baffled Nino persistently asks if he has got someone else’s test results – he is told that to preserve his chances of conceiving children he must provide a sperm sample for freezing right away, this weekend, before he begins chemo and radiotherapy on Monday.

As he faces this onerous task for which he is tragicomically not in the mood, poor Nino displays something between stoicism and numb inability to absorb the truth. He has a series of scenes and encounters in which his cancer is the unmentioned new elephant in his living room: he meets up with his ex, Camille (Camille Rutherford), but can’t tell her the news, leaving her with a postcard; he has a long conversation with his mum (a cameo for Jeanne Balibar) who has her own life to lead; he has to endure his own birthday party and then gets locked out of his apartment. He then has a fortuitous meeting with his school contemporary Zoé (Salomé Dewaels), a young mum. Smart, gentle Zoé has a connection with Nino, who is vouchsafed a sad vision of his future with her as a husband and father, a future which may never happen.

There are flaws in this film: the circumstances in which Nino finally provides that sperm sample are entirely ridiculous and there is a somewhat precious and self-conscious cameo for Mathieu Amalric. But in many ways it’s a shrewd sketch of the ways that real life, in all its embarrassment and banality, does not respectfully stop for bad news.