Love According to Dalva (2023)

Love According to Dalva is the rare drama that tackles a harrowing subject with a steady hand and a fiercely humane heart, refusing shock tactics in favor of quiet truth. Emmanuelle Nicot’s direction is remarkably restrained, letting small gestures and everyday moments carry the weight, while Zelda Samson gives a magnetic performance that feels less “acted” than lived—brave, complicated, and impossible to look away from. The film’s vibe is intimate and observant, finding slivers of tenderness and dark humor inside the routines of social services and adolescence as Dalva begins to rediscover what being a kid can mean. It’s not an easy watch and won’t be for everyone, but if you value honest storytelling that treats its characters with dignity, this one stays with you in the best, most necessary way.

Love According to Dalva is clearly trying to reclaim a child’s stolen childhood with a grounded, social-services perspective, and it treats its subject with more compassion than sensationalism. That said, it’s a heavy watch about grooming and the slow dawning realization of abuse, so if you’re looking for catharsis, tidy justice, or emotional relief, this will likely feel draining rather than “uplifting.” The storytelling can also feel familiar in its social-realist beats, and some viewers may be frustrated that the film doesn’t dig as deeply as it could into race and the broader context of how certain children are sexualized in white European society. Still, Zelda Samson’s performance and the careful depiction of recovery give it real weight—just don’t go in expecting comfort or novelty.