Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, this story of Cyril, a scrappy 11-year-old coping with his father's abandonment, is moving and not just because the kid rides around a lot. Radiant Cécile de France (last in these pages in Hereafter) is the adult hairdresser who takes the boy on weekends away from the institution where his father has left him. Newcomer Thomas Doret, who was 13 at the time of photography, has exactly the right amount of intensity required (a lot) for us to believe he is Cyril. Jérémie Renier (after I wrote about him in Summer Hours he was in Potiche), not to be confused with Jeremy Renner, plays Cyril's father Guy as to make us feel sorry for Cyril. And Egon Di Mateo, another newcomer, is excellent as the teenager who befriends Cyril.
Directors/writers/brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (covered in Lorna's Silence, which is one of the rare movies on my site that I didn't like) are back on track with this drama, shot in the native Belgium of all the principal filmmakers on the project. Rottentomatoes' reviewers agree, averaging a whopping 96%, with audiences weighing in at 77%, and the movie had quite a few other nominations besides the Golden Globe, including Best International Film Independent Spirit Award.
As we saw this on May 1, my memory of it is spotty. No composer is listed and I can't remember what the music is like. But I can tell you that Jack and I both liked it. The DVD release date hasn't been announced yet.
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