‘Alpha’ is a Hollow Exploitation of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic [Cannes Review]

I rarely allow myself to go into a major horror release fully blind. Such was the case with Palme d’Or winning director Julia Ducournau’s sophomore masterpiece Titane, a highly stylized and anguishing exercise in brutality and narrative experimentation. It turned out to be one of my favorite films of 2021. For Alpha, her third film, which screened in official competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, I also entered with little forewarning. This time, however, my lack of preparation only heightened the disappointment I felt in the face of the film’s clunky insensitivity, abrasive tone, and, at times, embarrassingly misjudged swings into body horror.

As with Ducournau’s previous work, Alpha is a punishing experience for the audience, but this time, there’s almost no reward for its relentlessness. If, in 2025, you’re going to exploit the AIDS epidemic, you had better have a compelling reason. Or, at the very least, something of value to say, even if it’s been said before. But to approach such a well-worn and devastating subject with virtually no respect or consideration for queer or Black experiences is to begin on an already misguided and ethically precarious footing.

The film wastes no time in making its intentions known, presenting a group of young, underprivileged, and predominantly white-passing French students, many seemingly of Middle Eastern descent, in an alternate universe where 13-year-olds are already struggling with heroin addiction and tattooing each other in midday drug dens. The title character, played with bewildered conviction by the very talented Mélissa Boros, is introduced as she has the letter “A” gruesomely inked into her upper arm. When she returns home, her mother (referred to only as “Mamam”), a doctor played by Golshifteh Farahani, is immediately alarmed. Mamam bears daily witness to a mysterious virus ravaging the city’s queer men and intravenous drug users.

Referred to only as “the virus,” the disease, spread through needle sharing and likely through sex between men, is an obvious metaphor for HIV/AIDS. However, in Ducournau’s hands, the illness manifests as a grotesque calcification of the human body. Patients slowly transform into cracked marble or pale stone, their bodies disintegrating in visceral, often grotesque sequences. As Alpha and her family wait to learn whether she has been infected, a parallel narrative unfolds involving her uncle Arim (Tahar Rahim), a heroin user grappling with his own descent toward the same dismal fate.

While the AIDS crisis unquestionably impacted communities of intravenous drug users, Alpha‘s near-total erasure of queer and Black experiences feels, at best, miscalculated and, at worst, willfully dismissive. A queer male teacher is briefly shown grieving the loss of his partner, but when a student mocks his “faggy” voice, he crumbles, allowing the child to publicly humiliate him. It’s the only depiction of queerness in the film, and it lacks even a shred of agency, empathy, or strength. Beyond this single, pitiful moment, the film shows no interest in queer life, grief, or history. And while Arim is of Middle Eastern descent, the film leans heavily into overwrought and melodramatic expressions of pain without a hint of nuance or critical perspective.

By narrowing its gaze so tightly on the edginess of a fictional underworld of adolescent drug use, Alpha misses a chance to engage with the complex realities of a disease that continues to devastate marginalized communities. As a queer man, I’m willing to admit my lived experience may impact how sensitive I am to the appropriation of an epidemic that has decimated, and continues to affect, my community. But even assuming Ducournau’s intentions were noble, her execution feels exploitative, designed more for aesthetic shock than any meaningful reflection. If she had something insightful to say about the disease, I couldn’t find it amid the film’s muddled metaphor and ineffectual body horror.

The affliction manifests as a stony whitening of the skin. Mostly White-passing characters turn a veined marble hue. The only Black character I recall, who did not speak, is depicted turning to obsidian. These individuals occasionally cough up powder, their bodies eventually cracking into shards or solidifying into statues. While this concept might read as creative on paper, its execution comes across as clumsy and, often, cheap. These are bold swings from a talented filmmaker, but they land far below the standard set by her previous films.

Alpha is a frustrating misstep from one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary horror. While Ducournau’s ambition and flair for unsettling imagery remain intact, the film’s muddled ethics and misjudged metaphor strip it of the emotional and political weight it so desperately reaches for.

Tags: Alpha Cannes 2025 Julia Ducournau

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