The Balconettes ending explained: Did chaos lead to liberation?

The Balconettes’ ending is as divisive as the film itself because critics and audiences are split on whether it represents liberation, satire, or simply chaos without resolution. Noémie Merlant’s genre-blurring feature begins as a playful satire about three women living in a Marseille apartment block, but ends in an explosion of violence, freedom, and ambiguity.

Audiences left the theater with questions, not clarity. Following its festival run, the film opened in a limited U.S. theatrical release on August 22, 2025, playing in select venues including the IFC Center in New York and the Landmark Nuart in Los Angeles.

The film shifts from comedy to thriller to a radical feminist allegory, making its conclusion one of the more talked-about moments of Cannes 2024. What appears on screen is more than just a shocking finale. It is a commentary on repression, survival, and the fragile line between empowerment and destruction.

Disclaimer: This article discusses themes of violence and assault and includes major spoilers for The Balconettes. Readers’ discretion is advised.

The three friends, Ruby (Souheila Yacoub), Nicole (Sanda Codreanu), and Elise (Noémie Merlant), spend much of the movie confronting male attention, harassment, and societal pressure. Their balcony becomes both a refuge and a stage, a place where they reclaim their gaze yet cannot escape being observed.

In the end, the women kill Magnani, dispose of his body, and what follows blurs the line between reality and Nicole’s imagination. In her narration, she describes how the storm had passed and how everyone felt free that night.

This narration overlaps with images of the three women running joyfully along the seaside and then walking freely through the streets, surrounded by other women, some bare-chested, in a vision of collective liberation. Yet Nicole also confronts Magnani’s ghost, who admits to his assault before disappearing. The film leaves it unclear whether these scenes depict real events or the written ending of Nicole’s book.

The Balconettes refuses to settle the matter, leaving it unclear whether this act is true freedom or a fragile victory shadowed by pain. It demands viewers wrestle with unease. In this ending, comedy dissolves into confrontation, and the audience is left wondering whether catharsis or tragedy just unfolded before their eyes.

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How does The Balconettes’ ending unfold?

Magnani’s sinister presence haunts The Balconettes, embodying predatory male power. (Image via The Forge)

By the final act of The Balconettes, the simmering tension with their handsome neighbor, Magnani (Lucas Bravo), reaches a violent climax. After Ruby accepts his invitation for a late-night photoshoot, the encounter turns predatory. She returns home covered in blood, shaken, and mute.

The three women soon discover Magnani’s lifeless body in his apartment. Convinced that the police will not believe their story, they begin covering up the crime. What follows is a grotesque and absurd sequence of corpse disposal, dismemberment, and frantic improvisation.

The climax sees the women hauling Magnani’s remains away in suitcases before ultimately dumping them into the sea. Nicole then encounters Magnani’s ghost, who insists he is not the true monster until Nicole forces him to admit his assault on Ruby. He vanishes after confessing, and Nicole resolves to write the truth. The final image shows Ruby reading Nicole’s story, praising its ending, as the three women walk through the streets in a vision of freedom alongside countless other women.

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How does The Balconettes ending blur comedy and violence?

Ruby reads Nicole’s story, reinforcing the ending’s blend of narration and reality in The Balconettes (Image via The Forge)

The ending of The Balconettes refuses to stay within one genre. Much like the rest of the film, the final act embraces tonal shifts. What starts off as absurd humor, neighbors gossiping, awkward flirtations, and exaggerated male bravado, suddenly descends into bloodshed. The balcony, once a playful vantage point, becomes a site of violent confrontation.

This jarring switch unsettles the viewer, stripping away the protective distance comedy usually provides. The violence does not feel staged for entertainment but rather an eruption of the anger suppressed throughout the film. The women’s laughter earlier in the story echoes through the finale, forcing audiences to question whether that laughter masks deeper wounds. In doing so, The Balconettes positions its ending as both a punchline and a provocation.

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What does the balcony symbolize in The Balconettes

ending?

Female friendship and shared laughter anchor The Balconettes even amid chaos (Image via The Forge)

The balcony in The Balconettes is more than an architectural detail. It is a liminal space, neither public nor private, both performance and retreat. Throughout the film, the women lean over it, observe men, and invite encounters while still holding distance. But by the end, the balcony becomes a battleground. It embodies the tension between visibility and vulnerability.

In the final sequence, when boundaries collapse, the balcony loses its protective function and the outside world invades. The women are forced to confront the gaze they once manipulated. The destruction that follows symbolizes not only the fragility of safety but also the impossibility of escaping scrutiny. Whether the balcony stands for power reclaimed or for freedom shattered remains deliberately ambiguous.

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Is The Balconettes ending a story of female rage or liberation?

Shock and disbelief grip the trio in The Balconettes as they face the aftermath of a crime (Image via The Forge)

The final act places female rage at the forefront. The eruption of violence can be read as a radical rejection of the control and harassment faced by the women. For some, this moment feels liberating, a direct refusal to play by rules imposed on them. The destruction becomes an act of survival and defiance, transforming what began as satire into a visceral cry of resistance.

Yet the liberation is complicated. The ambiguity of the aftermath makes it unclear whether the women’s choices free them or trap them further in cycles of violence. Nicole’s confrontation with Magnani’s ghost and her narration of freedom add a surreal quality that leaves viewers uncertain whether they are seeing lived reality or the imagined conclusion of her story.

The mixture of personal confession, spectral dialogue, and utopian imagery of women walking freely creates a finale that is both empowering and unsettling. The Balconettes does not deliver a neat conclusion. Instead, it dares audiences to sit with discomfort, to ask whether rage can be both empowering and destructive at once, and to question if true liberation is achievable or if it remains an aspirational vision crafted through storytelling.

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Why is The Balconettes ending so ambiguous?

A tense kitchen scene in The Balconettes shows Nicole and Elise panicking after violence erupts (Image via The Forge)

The ambiguity of The Balconettes’ ending lies in its refusal to provide a single, definitive meaning. The violence can be seen as a cathartic release, but it can just as easily be read as a destructive spiral. The women’s laughter throughout the film echoes against their final act, making viewers unsure if they have reclaimed power or simply mirrored the chaos around them.

Even after they kill and dispose of Magnani, his ghost continues to appear, signaling that trauma and male violence do not simply vanish. The women’s final walk through the streets looks triumphant, but because it is filtered through Nicole’s narration, it may represent fantasy rather than reality. This double vision, liberation on one side and unresolved pain on the other, ensures that no single interpretation prevails.

This lack of resolution is intentional. Merlant pushes audiences to confront contradictions: rage and joy, freedom and loss, empowerment and vulnerability. The Balconettes ends without answering its own questions, because life rarely provides clean answers. Its ambiguity ensures that each viewer leaves with their own interpretation, making the film’s ending less about closure and more about reflection.

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Unlike conventional thrillers or comedies, the movie does not tie up its narrative threads. The abruptness of its ending mirrors the unpredictability of real life. Just as the women’s laughter masks unease, their final act refuses to give audiences the satisfaction of clarity. There is no single moral or resolution.

By denying closure, the film reinforces its themes of surveillance, vulnerability, and resistance. The unresolved nature of the finale forces viewers to engage beyond the screen. It keeps the conversation alive long after the credits roll.

The Balconettes is currently running in select theaters, giving audiences the chance to experience its provocative and divisive ending firsthand.