MOVIE OF THE WEEK May 29, 2026: NESTING (PEAU A PEAU)

A new mother’s unresolved trauma leads to intense distress in writer/director Chloé Cinq-Mars’ gripping French Canadian drama/thriller Nesting. As it explores the impact of postpartum depression, the film paints a painfully relatable picture of what it’s like to lose your sense of self once part of that self becomes a needy, vulnerable creature that seemingly can’t be satiated, no matter how much you might love it or sacrifice for it.

Penelope (Rose-Marie Perreault) knows, logically, that she loves her infant son, Lou (Raphaël L’Archer), but his birth wasn’t easy for either of them, and she doesn’t quite believe that she can be the mother he needs to grow and thrive. He’s often fussy, crying at night and demanding attention from Penelope or his father, Penelope’s well-meaning but fairly oblivious aspiring-musician boyfriend, Gaspard (Simon Landry-Desy). When Penelope takes Lou for a late-night walk one warm evening during which sleep is particularly elusive, they find themselves a market in the middle of a holdup, and—though neither is hurt—things spiral downward from there.

Everywhere she goes, Penelope sees ghosts/hints of her sister, Charlotte (Marie Bélanger), whom, audiences gradually learn, died long ago. Cinq-Mars doles out the circumstances of Charlotte’s death gradually, never fully clarifying Penelope’s role in it—or lack thereof. It seems that it has something to do with Penelope’s old flame, Edward (Saladin Dellers), but it’s also obvious that Penelope is an unreliable source of information, with her memories of Charlotte’s demise intertwined with her growing insecurities as a mother and her sometimes-irrational fears for Lou.

As Penelope heads toward a crisis, Cinq-Mars trusts her own direction and script — and Perreault’s no-holds-barred performance — to propel the story toward its conclusion. In the process, it examines the toll that motherhood takes on women in the modern age, from physical exhaustion to constant questioning of your own commitment and abilities. Like Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch, Nesting is likely to strike an all-too-familiar chord when it comes to the circumstances that lead to feelings of isolation and desperation in far too many women, no matter how much they love their children. — Betsy Bozdech

Team #MOTW’s comments:
Sandie Angulo Chen: Nesting is a French-language Canadian horror-thriller about a woman whose postpartum depression is rooted in a slowly revealed trauma. The psychological horror begins after the protagonist and her baby, out for a late-night walk, witness an armed robbery at a convenience store. The violent incident triggers even deeper levels of confusion, paranoia, and emotional dysregulation for new mother Penelope, played with visceral intensity by Rose-Marie Perreault. Director Chloé Cinq-Mars explores not only the challenges of postpartum motherhood but also the lingering effects of grief and trauma tied to Penelope’s past. The film can be difficult to watch, especially as Penelope’s desperate need to protect baby Lou occasionally places him in danger, but it’s a memorable (if disturbing) portrait of how vulnerable, exhausting, and downright terrifying new motherhood can feel.

Leslie Combemale Plenty of women, millions in fact, have a personal understanding of postpartum depression. There’s so much shame involved as part of the disorder that sometimes intervention happens too late, as many a tragic headline has demonstrated. Writer/director Chloe Cinq-Mars brings us inside the experience, capturing the claustrophobic, the intense anxiety, or I’m-going-crazy feelings all too well. Through camera work and the color palette, Nesting vacillates between dreamy and nightmarish, which adds an experiential, insider quality that will definitely make viewers uncomfortable, but they’ll nonetheless walk away with a better understanding of PPD and what so many women suffer.