On vous croit (We believe you) | 2025 Berlin Intl. Film Festival Review

High Tension: Deville & Dufeys Suffer the Children in Jittery Debut

Tossing us right into the hellfire of an acutely agonizing situation, Charlotte Deville and Arnaud Dufeys’ directorial debut On vous croit (We believe you) is churning potboiler of emotional duress. From the opening frame to the final credits, it’s a film meant to keep the audience on edge, and purposefully at odds with the cheerful resonance of its title, and what such a statement comes to mean for a Belgian mother locked in a grueling custody battle for her two children. Aggravating but ultimately empathetic, it’s set almost entirely within the sterile confines of a judge’s office, which ultimately feels like a structured reprieve whenever we’re forced to stray outside these rigid confines, when its characters are otherwise in the final, collective throes of a nervous breakdown.

Alice (Myriem Akheddiou) is a woman on the edge, and we meet her in the strenuous process of bringing her children Lila (Adele Pinckaers) and Etienne (Ulysse Goffin) to a custody hearing. Her son is particularly vehement, it seems, in sabotaging the process. But we quickly learn there is a criminal investigation underway against his father (Laurent Capelluto), who allegedly raped Etienne two years prior. This hasn’t stopped his father from pursuing custody of the children, neither of whom have spoken with him over the past two years. They are brought before a judge (Natali Broods), who must decide if the children are telling the truth while their parents engage in a fierce battle over their future.

The interplay of We Believe You plays more along the lines of Allen v. Farrow (2021) than something like Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), but it similarly reflects the excruciating struggle of children caught in the crosshairs of extreme parental discontent and the somewhat apathetic judicial proceedings designed to interpret what’s best. At the agonized center is a Myriem Akheddiou as Alice, and cinematographer Pepin Struye often keeps her countenance in extreme close-up, magnifying the propulsive emotional intensity. Akheddiou, who has often been featured in films by the Dardenne Bros. (and also played Agathe Rouselle’s mother in Titane, 2021) is galvanizing and unforgettable here, like an aggrieved heroine plucked out of a Ken Loach domestic fiasco and deposited as a volatile, destructive whirlwind decimating the fragile confines of an ascetic courtroom proceeding.

While Seville and Dufeys forego the parity of perspective with Laurent Capelluto as the maligned father, they still mine the fields of distrust and ambiguity regarding the situation at hand. Was Etienne sexually assaulted by his father, or were these fabricated charges instigated and exaggerated by a vengeful, unstable mother? While circumstances suggest this is not the case, it’s a reflection of how arguably irrational behavior might be interpreted by an objective observer, and thus we are in a similar position to the judge listening to various perspectives, including the children, their parents, and three lawyers representing each party’s interests. Its thankfully brief running time still somehow feels like we’ve been held as captive witnesses to the aftershocks of emotional wreckage still tumbling to some unknown bottom, while not a moment seems wasted in its brackish, compacted tumultuousness. In other words, We Believe You is a film with a considerable sting and there’s nary a moment to exhale until the reprieve of its final frames.

Much like Xavier Legrand’s equally distressing Custody (2017), this is a film which feels like an open wound. As its title suggests, there’s a necessary communal catharsis for those who’ve been victimized, but there’s a historical tendency for such acknowledgment to be withheld. We Believe You also doesn’t give us the satisfaction of closure for these characters, but it does give us a doggedly persistent mother who does indeed believe her children, even if no one else will. As such, there’s a sense of relief we’re led to—-but it’s purely purgative.

Reviewed on February 17th at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival (75th edition) – Perspectives. 78 mins.

★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆