The Kid with a Bike (2011)
(Le gamin au vélo)
Country: BEL/FR/IT
Technical: col 87m
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cast: Thomas Doret, Cécile De France, Jérémie Renier
Synopsis:
An eleven year-old boy in state care will not rest until he has two things: his bike and his dad. A hairdresser, who witnesses his distress for what it is, takes on the daunting task of rehabilitating him to relations of mutual respect by offering to foster him at weekends.
Review:
Affecting tale about one woman's desire to make a difference, and the boy's painfully slow realisation that he can have a close bond with a mother figure. Given some unlikely plot detail (the father's refusal to so much as work with the authorities; the hairdresser's sacrifice of her own partner to a child who gives her nothing but trouble), one has to say this is the Dardennes in partial wish-fulfilment territory, creating the conditions in which to spin a suspenseful 'will he/won't he?' account of young Cyril's moral growth. At the same time, they provide yet another portrait of the human spirit fighting back against the social conditions thrust upon it, and they do so with their characteristic up-close filming and avoidance of cuts, so that you hardly notice the boy wears a red riding hood and the hairdresser is played by a movie star.
(Le gamin au vélo)
Country: BEL/FR/IT
Technical: col 87m
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cast: Thomas Doret, Cécile De France, Jérémie Renier
Synopsis:
An eleven year-old boy in state care will not rest until he has two things: his bike and his dad. A hairdresser, who witnesses his distress for what it is, takes on the daunting task of rehabilitating him to relations of mutual respect by offering to foster him at weekends.
Review:
Affecting tale about one woman's desire to make a difference, and the boy's painfully slow realisation that he can have a close bond with a mother figure. Given some unlikely plot detail (the father's refusal to so much as work with the authorities; the hairdresser's sacrifice of her own partner to a child who gives her nothing but trouble), one has to say this is the Dardennes in partial wish-fulfilment territory, creating the conditions in which to spin a suspenseful 'will he/won't he?' account of young Cyril's moral growth. At the same time, they provide yet another portrait of the human spirit fighting back against the social conditions thrust upon it, and they do so with their characteristic up-close filming and avoidance of cuts, so that you hardly notice the boy wears a red riding hood and the hairdresser is played by a movie star.
(Le gamin au vélo)
Country: BEL/FR/IT
Technical: col 87m
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cast: Thomas Doret, Cécile De France, Jérémie Renier
Synopsis:
An eleven year-old boy in state care will not rest until he has two things: his bike and his dad. A hairdresser, who witnesses his distress for what it is, takes on the daunting task of rehabilitating him to relations of mutual respect by offering to foster him at weekends.
Review:
Affecting tale about one woman's desire to make a difference, and the boy's painfully slow realisation that he can have a close bond with a mother figure. Given some unlikely plot detail (the father's refusal to so much as work with the authorities; the hairdresser's sacrifice of her own partner to a child who gives her nothing but trouble), one has to say this is the Dardennes in partial wish-fulfilment territory, creating the conditions in which to spin a suspenseful 'will he/won't he?' account of young Cyril's moral growth. At the same time, they provide yet another portrait of the human spirit fighting back against the social conditions thrust upon it, and they do so with their characteristic up-close filming and avoidance of cuts, so that you hardly notice the boy wears a red riding hood and the hairdresser is played by a movie star.