Love Accord­ing to Dal­va – first-look review

Less gra­tu­itous but sim­i­lar to the psy­chol­o­gy of Jamie Godard’s Toys Are Not for Chil­dren, Love Accord­ing to Dal­va explores the ways ten­der­ness, sex­u­al­i­ty, and pater­nal love inter­sect with­in a child. ​“I’m not a girl, I’m a woman,” are the stab­bing words spo­ken by Dal­va (Zel­da Sam­son), a 12-year-old girl who wears heavy make­up, scrapes her hair into a bun and dress­es in mid­dle-aged women’s clothes.

The film opens with offi­cers tak­ing away Dalva’s father, Jacques (Jean-Louis Coul­loch). The cam­era resists lin­ger­ing on Jacques, clutch­ing onto Dalva’s gaze and cap­tur­ing every flinch and tear of pain. Enraged and con­fused as to why she’s been ripped away from her father and placed into a tem­po­rary care home with oth­er neglect­ed chil­dren and teens. Dal­va ini­tial­ly refus­es to com­ply with her new social work­er Jay­den (Alex­is Maneti). As she demands to be reunit­ed with her father, who she only refers to by his first name, the film unpacks the com­plex­i­ty of con­trol­ling rela­tion­ships through var­i­ous inter­ac­tions with Jayden.

It’s a frag­ile sub­ject mat­ter to explore. But when one in 20 chil­dren have been abused in the UK, is our har­row­ing real­i­ty – it’s inte­gral. Nicot pre­vi­ous­ly vol­un­teered at an emer­gency youth cen­tre, where she learned the sto­ry of a six-year-old girl who had lived alone with her father, who sex­u­al­ly abused her. The char­ac­ters in Love Accord­ing to Dal­va are fic­ti­tious, but the sto­ry reflects reality.

One shat­ter­ing scene in a police sta­tion shows a chill­ing inter­ac­tion between Dal­va and Jacques. It forces the audi­ence to wit­ness a raw man­i­fes­ta­tion of an abuser’s con­di­tion­ing of a child. How­ev­er, Nicot focus­es on the victim’s sto­ry and recov­ery, allow­ing lit­tle screen­time of Jacques, and for­bid­ding him of an explored back­sto­ry or psyche.

What fol­lows isn’t a sen­sa­tion­alised depic­tion of trau­ma but an autonomous jour­ney of learn­ing how to be a child that sub­verts the stan­dard vic­tim nar­ra­tive. It’s a reverse com­ing-of-age sto­ry. As she unties her hair, wipes off the dark pur­ple lip­stick and rebel­lious­ly takes a drag of a cig­a­rette, Dal­va begins to decon­struct her per­cep­tions and nav­i­gate her iden­ti­ty beyond trauma.

Nicot’s expe­ri­ence as a cast­ing direc­tor aids in the organ­ic per­for­mance of each cast mem­ber, with an excep­tion­al per­for­mance by Sam­son. She takes on the heav­i­ness of Dalva’s char­ac­ter with a bal­ance of matu­ri­ty and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Dalva’s sto­ry isn’t one of indi­vid­u­al­ism, but one that speaks to the col­lec­tive and pays trib­ute to the pow­er of sol­i­dar­i­ty and friend­ship through the char­ac­ter of Samia (Fan­ta Guirassy), Dalva’s room­mate – a refresh­ing­ly fleshed out char­ac­ter played with heart and authen­tic­i­ty by Guirassy.

Nicot’s debut is a sen­si­tive and inti­mate insight into the lives expe­ri­enced by too many. Han­dled with del­i­ca­cy and brav­ery, Nicot has craft­ed a pow­er­ful anato­my of the imprint of sex­u­al abuse. Love Accord­ing to Dal­va is a voice for those who can’t speak out.