Celebration and Resentment Share the Same Table

MOVIE REVIEW
Orange-Flavoured Wedding (Mariage au goût d'orange)
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Genre: Drama, Family
Year Released: 2026
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director(s): Christophe Honoré
Writer(s): Christophe Honoré
Cast: Adèle Exarchopoulos, Vincent Lacoste, Paul Kircher, Alban Lenoir, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Malou Khebizi, Noée Abita
Where to Watch: shown at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival

RAVING REVIEW: There’s an uncomfortable honesty running through ORANGE-FLAVOURED WEDDING that keeps it from turning into the kind of family reunion drama its premise initially suggests. Christophe Honoré frames the wedding itself almost like an emotional pressure cooker, not as a moment when everyone reconnects, but as an event that forces people to occupy the same physical space. At the same time, years of unresolved resentment sit between them. The result is a film that feels personal, occasionally chaotic, and far more interested in emotional scars than sentimentality.

Set in 1978 in the suburbs of Nantes, France, the story centers around the Puig family gathering for the wedding of Jacques and Martine. We get to inhabit the event, with seven siblings reunited. The family patriarch remains absent, effectively exiled from the family after years of damage that continues to linger over everyone involved. Honoré uses that setup less as a hook and more as an excuse to examine the architecture of an entire family. Every interaction feels informed by something older than the conversation itself.

What stands out is how crowded the film intentionally feels. There are moments when conversations overlap, emotions collide, and characters drift in and out of scenes with little regard for clear exposition. That could easily become overwhelming, but ORANGE-FLAVOURED WEDDING benefits from the sense that this family existed long before the audience arrived. The siblings don’t speak like characters introducing themselves to viewers. They speak like people who already know every humiliation, every argument, and every betrayal by heart.

Paul Kircher gives Jacques a softness that becomes increasingly important as the film progresses. In many ways, he’s the center without necessarily dominating the screen. Jacques isn’t portrayed as someone capable of magically fixing the family around him. His wedding becomes a temporary gathering point for people who are still trying to understand themselves, much less each other. Kircher plays him with a kind of vulnerability that prevents the character from becoming overly idealized.

Malou Khebizi also leaves a strong impression as Martine. What works best about her performance is how solid it feels amid the chaos surrounding the Puig family. She isn’t presented as some symbolic outsider meant to save everyone. Instead, she slowly realizes the emotional terrain she’s entering, and Khebizi communicates that growing awareness through subtle reactions rather than dramatic speeches. There’s an uncertainty beneath her composure that keeps the relationship feeling human.

The ensemble as a whole is where the film gains much of what makes it work. Adèle Exarchopoulos brings a volatile edge to Claudie, while Vincent Lacoste continues proving how effective he can be in material built around discomfort and frustration. Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Noée Abita each contribute to the feeling that every sibling carries their own version of the history, shaped differently depending on where they stood within it. Nobody feels reduced to a simple archetype.

There’s also an undercurrent throughout the film involving performance itself. Weddings are inherently performative spaces. Families dress well, smile through tension, and attempt to preserve appearances temporarily. ORANGE-FLAVOURED WEDDING constantly chips away at that illusion. Characters excuse themselves from tables to cry. Old arguments resurface in sideways comments. Smiles fade the second conversations end. Honoré never allows the celebration to mask the emotional instability underneath it fully.

Honoré never pushes the material toward emotional release. ORANGE-FLAVOURED WEDDING understands that family wounds rarely resolve themselves through a single confrontation or gathering. The film isn’t interested in tying every emotional thread into a comforting conclusion. Instead, it focuses on the uncomfortable reality that some people spend their entire lives negotiating the damage left behind by childhood.

Love exists within this family, but so does bitterness. People want connection while simultaneously struggling to forgive each other. Some characters crave reconciliation while others barely tolerate being in the same room together. The film captures that instability without reducing anyone to a hero or a villain.

ORANGE-FLAVOURED WEDDING doesn’t chase melodrama, even though the material easily could have supported it. Writer/director Christophe Honoré approaches the story with restraint, allowing ruptures to matter more than confrontations. That choice gives the film a lingering heaviness that feels earned rather than manufactured. It’s a wedding film where the celebration itself almost becomes secondary to everything left unsaid around it, and that’s ultimately what gives it its emotional weight.

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[photo courtesy of PYRAMIDE, LES FILM PELLEAS, THE PR FACTORY]

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