L’ENFANT (The Child)

RATING: B+

Starring: Jeremie Renier, Deborah Francois, Jeremie Segard, Fabrizio Rongione, Olivier Gourmet. Edited by Marie-Helene Dozo, Director of Photography Alain Marcoen, Production Designer Igor Gabriel, Costume Designer Monic Parelle, Produced by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Written and Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne.

Not Rated, Running Time 100 mins., 1.77 to 1 Aspect Ratio.
In Belgium with English Subtitles.

Twenty-year of Bruno (Jeremie Renier) is a young hustler who’s just had a baby with his naïve girlfriend Sonia (Deborah Francois). Returning from the hospital with their newborn baby, Sonia discovers that Bruno has sub-let their apartment and he’s living on the street. Even though he hustles and engages in petty thievery with his young friend Steve (Jeremie Segard), Bruno can do no wrong in Sonia’s eyes. After they spend the night in a shelter, she tells him they have to declare the child together in the morning, but Bruno has other plans. When Bruno’s fence suggests he sell the baby in an illegal adoption, Bruno takes the child for a “stroll in the park” and ends up in a designated apartment where he leaves the baby in an empty room and returns to find thousands of bills in its place. “We can always have another one”, he suggests to Sonia, after he tells her sold the child, to which she responds by fainting.

Realizing his mistake, Bruno desperately tries to make contact with the unseen individuals he sold the baby to. Now he must pay these shadowy gangsters double for the money they lost and deal with the fact that Sonia has informed the authorities of what he’s done. When the gangsters brutally inform Bruno he’ll now steal for them to pay back the money he owes, he enlists young Steve to accompany him on a caper that will land them some valuable coins. But even that plan backfires, and Bruno lands himself deeper and deeper in hot water with fewer friends to depend on.

“L’Enfant” won the 2005 Palme D’Or, the Best Picture award and top prize at the Cannes film festival. Though directors and brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne show direct influence from Francoise Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” the film has a unique hero in the form of Jeremie Renier. Fans of Chrisptophe Gans genre-bending epic “Brotherhood of the Wolf” may recognize Renier as young Thomas who grew up to be the old narrator of the film. Renier fully embodies a young hustler of the 21st century who is clearly out of his league and compulsively chooses his actions through fear. Deep down he’s a decent kid that loves his girlfriend and even their baby, but he’s immature and irresponsible. The average person may find his actions stupid and unforgivable, but if you look deeper you can see that this kid is desperate and scared of adulthood.

The Dardenne brothers have written an impressive screenplay that moves at a fluid and realistic pace thanks in part to Renier’s performance, Marie-Helene Dozo’s editing and Alain Marcoen’s photography. The photography is particularly impressive during a chase scene in which Bruno and Steve are persistently followed across the freeway and into the river by the owner of the coins they steal. There are also increasing degrees of tension such as when Bruno exchanges the money and the baby for the second time and you can’t help but fear that the baby won’t be there. Few movies made in America are able to hold the viewer’s attention which such dramatic excitement and emotional depth within a small short film. The Dardenne brothers make it seem so simple.