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Jérémie Rénier,
Jérémie Rénier,
Deborah Francois,
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Jean-Pierre Dardenne,
Jean-Pierre Dardenne,
Luc Dardenne,
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see all cast/crew...
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: Sony Pictures
: Drama, Foreign, France
: 96 min.
: French
: English, French
see additional details...
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After learning he has a newborn son, a small-time thief attempts to go straight - but not until his amorality is pushed to its breaking point - in this social-problem drama from writer-directors Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne. Eighteen-year-old Sonia (Déborah Francois) has just given birth to a baby boy. The baby's father Bruno (Jérémie Renier) is panhandling in the street when Sonia tracks him down, and he shows little interest in fathering the child, or even providing a roof over the heads of the fledgling family. As the new and inexperienced mother navigates the bleak industrial landscape of the small Belgian town they live in, Bruno falls in with a clandestine group that buys and sells healthy children on the black market. He tragically learns that one avaricious decision, made in an instant, can affect the lives of everyone in his orbit. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
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| So Like a Brother
by RJones3
July 19, 2007 - 10:48 AM PDT
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1 out of 1 members found this review helpful
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| Why does the central character of L'Enfant hold our interest? "The average person may find his actions stupid and unforgivable," observes one critic, "But if you look deeper you can see that this kid is desperate and scared of adulthood." Having been a social worker for over twenty years, I see nothing of the sort. Rather, I see Bruno's prototype in Camus' 1942 novel L'Etranger. Like the anti-hero Mersault, Bruno has disturbing lacunae in his emotional landscape. Mersault feels nothing at his mother's funeral. Bruno sells his first-born son on the open market. There is nothing especially malicious in Bruno's behavior. He simply cannot rise to the occasion of moral choice. Roger Ebert speculates that the central problem of L'Enfant is much like the theological problem of God's omniscience versus free will. We need to feel that the tribulations of this youthful couple, Bruno and Sonia, have meaning in the scheme of things, but there is the nagging suspicion that we are witnessing a mere working out of what the directors call the "life force." In the end we may be inclined to agree with Mersault: "I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself--so like a brother, really--I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." |
| A Little Invention, Please
by talltale
August 13, 2006 - 5:30 PM PDT
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1 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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I am growing less convinced of the vaunted talent of filmmaking team the Dardennes brothers, particularly after seeing L'ENFANT. Again (as in "The Promise, " Rosetta," and "The Son"), the two show us the working-to-lower classes, done in what you might call a kind of Bresson-lite mode: intense close-ups of characters in situations that demand immediate attention. Terrible things are done but redemption rears its lovely head, at least enough to dangle the possibility in front of us--and the characters. But what of the dialog? It is flat in the extreme.
None of the Dardennes' people seem to have acquaintance with particularity. "The Child" offers one short scene in which a couple of characters joke and laugh a bit, which is a nice change, but generally everything seems written as if by robots (the actors do an amazing job, considering). All the Dardennes' movies grip me to an extent, due to their subject matter. But I am beginning to find a whiff of laziness in the consistently generic dialog that rarely helps us understand character--something dialog usually does. I think it is not by chance that so many of the people in the Dardennes' films seem such ciphers. Brothers, you're fine with place and situation, so take a chance with your dialog: invent! |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 7.12)
40 Votes
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| Cannes Film Festival & More - 2005 |
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| Official Selection, Certain Regards... and more. Here is a bit more information on the films screened at the Cannes. I have attempted to list all the films that were considered for an award as well as any special screenings. |
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