When we first meet the tiny mop­pet Adam (Jules Del­sart) he is lying in a hos­pi­tal bed with a feed­ing tube down his nose. At his side is his moth­er Rebec­ca (Ana­maria Var­tolomei) and head nurse Lucy (Léa Druck­er) who both have the boy’s best inter­ests at heart – right? The hos­pi­tal staff aren’t so sure. Despite Rebecca’s insis­tence that Adam has some sort of stom­ach con­di­tion that makes a reg­u­lar diet unfea­si­ble, Adam is mal­nour­ished with brit­tle bones. Rebec­ca won’t feed him a prop­er diet; if Rebec­ca isn’t present, Adam won’t eat at all. Lucy finds her­self in an impos­si­ble posi­tion, try­ing to act with­in the best inter­ests of her young patient while the hos­pi­tal staff breathe down her neck and the sin­gle moth­er becomes increas­ing­ly desperate.

The stark real­ism Wan­del demon­strat­ed in her har­row­ing debut Play­ground is on show again, with plen­ty of hand­held cam­eras track­ing Lucy as she buzzes around the cor­ri­dors of the hos­pi­tal, treat­ing not only Adam but her oth­er young patients, many of whom are in equal­ly per­ilous sit­u­a­tions. Fans of HBO Max’s 2025 med­ical dra­ma The Pitt might recog­nise the real-time anx­i­ety of Lucy’s shift, as she tries to pro­vide care under incred­i­ble bureau­crat­ic pres­sure and stretched resources with­in the health­care sys­tem. Léa Druck­er, a Cannes main­stay and depend­ably great screen pres­ence, brings a sense of poise and com­pe­tence to her role, even giv­en the dire cir­cum­stances, while Hap­pen­ing break­out Ana­maria Var­tolomei is sym­pa­thet­ic as the moth­er kick­ing against a restric­tive system.

Wan­del avoids easy answers – Adam’s Sake is decid­ed­ly with­hold­ing of the facts, nev­er quite reveal­ing if Rebec­ca is act­ing in her son’s best inter­ests or suf­fer­ing from a psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion her­self. This is a strength, as it demon­strates the nuance of her sit­u­a­tion and indeed many real life cas­es for young at-risk chil­dren where there is no straight­for­ward hero or vil­lain. Yet its tight 76-minute run­time does leave us a lit­tle in the lurch – there’s a sense that some vital piece of the puz­zle here is miss­ing, while Rebecca’s fraught rela­tion­ship with her ex (Adam’s father) veers a lit­tle towards cul­tur­al clichés about absent fathers.

Yet there’s no ques­tion­ing Wandel’s can­dor, or her inter­est in approach­ing dif­fi­cult sub­jects with­out danc­ing around them. As in Play­ground, she cap­tures a remark­able per­for­mance from her young lead (here Jules Del­sart) while speak­ing truth to pow­er about the fun­da­men­tal fail­ings with­in the sys­tems designed to pro­tect the most vulnerable.