Review: Alpha

Image courtesy of Neon.

The 2026 year in film's most prominent attribute so far has been misfires from acclaimed or reputable directors of note - first, it was Emerald Fennell's misguided "Wuthering Heights," then Maggie Gylenhaal's tonally scattershot "The Bride!" and, now I'm sorry to report, Julia Ducournau's "Alpha."

Ducournau's debut, the grim cannibalism tale "Raw," generated a fair amount of excitement among cinephiles. It was more a picture that I admired more than loved, but her sophomore effort, the deranged (and I say that lovingly) Palm d'Or winner "Titane," announced her as a major filmmaker and made my top 10 of that year.

At last year's Cannes Film Festival, "Alpha" was considered one of its biggest misfires, so I went into it knowing that it was considered a step down for the French filmmaker. On the positive side, I didn't think it was as bad as some critics contended, but it's still a movie with some interesting concepts and imagery in search of something better.

The film opens with a young girl of Berber descent named Alpha (Melissa Boros) having the letter "A" tattooed on her arm while she's drunk and passed out at a party. This violation is especially egregious considering that the Paris depicted in the film is being ravaged by a plague of sorts that is similar to AIDS in that it is passed along by exposure to blood, through sex, or from sharing needles.

The only difference is that the afflicted begin to grow skin that could best be described as having marble-like qualities. It chips off in chunks and the infirm tend to cough up dust. As the disease takes over, they begin to look more and more like a statue.

Alpha has already seen the disease up close. Her protective nurse mother (Golshifteh Farahani) is caring for her drug-addicted brother, Amin (Tahar Ramin), who will become a mentor of sorts for Alpha, in their home. Amin is nonplussed about the disease and seemingly has a death wish. After a few mishaps in which Alpha draws blood - plus the letter "A" tattooed on her arm - her fellow students begin to believe that she is also infected and torment her as she awaits the results of a test from a hospital. She also sneaks around with a boy in her class who has a girlfriend.

The letter "A" tattooed on Alpha's arm carries the weight of several concepts - for starters, "A" is literally for Alpha, but it is also the letter with which "AIDS" begins. It's also clearly a reference to the letter "A" in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlett Letter," which in that book stood for adultery, but here is intended for outcasts in general - and Alpha is certainly one.

While all of this interesting - and the film's visuals are compelling enough, though not on the level of "Titane" - none of these themes particularly go anywhere. They are given to us to ponder, but there is little development of these themes or concepts. Much of the film involves Alpha being harassed by other students, sneaking off to see the boy in her class, or spending time with her uncle, who takes her out to clubs and hotel rooms, where he shoots up.

Farahani is particularly good as the overprotective mother and Rahim is lively as Amin, but their characters are somewhat thinly drawn. The family's Berber origins make for some interesting moments, but they are merely used as color here - a dinner table scene for example. 

And while this material should be well utilized in the post COVID era, the film opts instead to be an AIDS metaphor, but for no particular reason. I'm not sure the film has much to say about that health crisis, other than to use some of its tenets to craft a Cronenbergian body horror drama.

Ducournau is a talented director, as evidenced by "Titane," a film that refused to be pinned down as one thing or another - at moments, it's a film about a female serial killer, then it's a father-daughter drama, and at other moments it veers into wildly surreal territory (a woman is impregnated by a car). It was a film that showed strong directorial command and was one of the most memorable films of the year it was released. 

"Alpha," by comparison, has elements that make it compelling in spurts, but it's a grim story with striking visuals that are in search of a more cohesive framework. I'm not sure what "Alpha" had to say about its subject matter - and I'm not sure the film knows either.