I’LL BE GONE IN JUNE (Cannes 2026) – Review by Diane Carson

I’ll Be Gone in June embeds with teenagers in 2001 Las Cruces, New Mexico

Writer/director Katharina Rivilis’ I’ll Be Gone in June sympathetically occupies the emotional and physical world of sixteen-year-old German exchange student Franny (Naomi Cosma) and her newly acquired friends, all high school students in 2001 Las Cruces, New Mexico. Accepted with curiosity by the local teenagers, Franny settles into a predictable, fairly typical year for a young woman maturing and exploring options. Through her intimate and public interactions, Franny’s days unfold with a myriad of encounters through which she’ll develop a more mature awareness of herself and the new cultural environment into which she’s been thrust. Quiet and a bit withdrawn, unsurprisingly, she becomes enamored of Elliott (David Flores), a solitary individual with a reputation as a drug dealer and drug user, important rumors left hanging. Equally deserving of more elaboration, Franny’s host family espouses and expects Franny to endorse their conservative Christian beliefs.

While Franny’s experiences clearly impact her, the narrative is shallow in its probing any character arcs or complexity. As a result, significant revelations remain elusive and unexplored. Its collage of scenes, though perhaps faithful to these characters’ days, the narrative jolts along without sufficient contextualization. In several awkwardly staged pool outings, comments on young women and young men’s future possibilities suggest resignation to limited opportunities, a perspective well worth pursuing, though, alas, it isn’t. Shortly thereafter, one of the young men surprisingly announces his acceptance to college. Again, this announcement begs for exposition.

To be fair, the Las Cruces landscape adds a fresh touch to the usual city or small-town settings for coming-of-age stories. Shooting on location, Italian cinematographer Giulia Schelhas beautifully captures the desert light in both day and night scenes, adding a unique touch of other worldliness to pedestrian events. This quality suggests Franny’s slightly uncomfortable displacement, that is, the look of the scenes translates her outsider status into visual representation. Most striking in that regard, late in the film, Franny and Elliott escape to nearby White Sands National Park. An immense sandstorm engulfs and separates them in a metaphoric, surrealistic haze. This soft focus, arresting scene suggests the signature moment for the film. Frightened, lost, Franny reaches out, expressing an unfulfilled yearning for connection. It encapsulates and defines this teenage environment better than any other action. Injecting relevant, pointed political commentary, the border wall looms nearby, providing the opportunity for comments on the relative safety of the white population, an inequitable reality reinforced in one scene of several of the group unconcerned as they float on the Rio Grande River. Of national importance, the 2011 tragedy looms in the background with its devastating shock to the American psyche. Unnerved, Franny’s host father attempts to inculcate Franny with his fear, teaching her to shoot a gun should a terrorist arrive at their home.

The ricocheting from one event to another may accurately depict Franny’s, Elliott’s and many other teenagers’ lives of disjointed exploration. However, it is critical for a film to explore this milieu in more satisfying and fulsome ways so that viewers may more intelligently and emotionally gain insight. Undoubtedly, this cinematic experience is targeted to and may more satisfactorily connect with the generation depicted for it approximates quite convincingly the helter-skelter careening from one exchange to another. Of note, the homegrown community welcome Franny into their midst. Good-hearted people all, an encouragement for empathy, particularly for newcomers and outsiders, pervades all the events. And, honest perhaps to a fault, the group’s attempts to get an adult to buy them a six-pack of beer rings true for the entire population of teenagers then and now. In total, I’ll Be Gone in June has an undeniable sweetness. As such, through this candid account of Rivilis’ own exchange student memories, encountering a U.S. very different from her expectations, her cinematic future bodes well. I’ll Be Gone in June, Rivilis’ feature film debut, screened in the Cannes Film Festival Un Certain Regard section.