Star Rating:

The Kid With A Bike

Director: Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne

Actors: Thomas Doret, Jeremie Renier

Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001

Genre(s): Drama

Running time: France minutes

A winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, The Kid With A Bike finds Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne in more energetic form than recent efforts The Child and The Silence Of Lorna. Keeping with their social realism motif, this story allows the Belgian brothers to branch out a tad and let's be thankful for that as it was all getting a little too depressing.

Determined to locate his wayward father who skipped out on him a month ago, eleven-year-old Cyril (Doret) is proving a handful for his carers at the local orphanage as he regularly escapes into town in a futile search. One such sortie leads him, literally, into the arms of hair salon owner Samantha (De France), who pities the young boy to such an extent she agrees to take him on for weekends. With Samantha's help, Cyril tracks down his father, Guy (Renier), but when Guy rejects out of hand, he turns to the company of local drug dealer Wes (Egron Di Matteo)...

Dardenne films are known for their emotionally unattached, observant style but here they really get stuck into Cyril's plight, all the time staying the right side of emotionally bullying the audience into feeling sympathetic for their hero. As usual, it's not what's said but unsaid that is important and Cyril's scene with Guy, following him around the restaurant kitchen just happy to spend time with him, while the audience knows that Guy can't wait to get him out of there, is a real heartbreaker. The Kid With A Bike shapes up to be the first 'aw' Dardenne film.

But then the Belgian brothers drop all that, almost drawing a line underneath it. Coming across like 'Next week on 'Cyril'...' the story moves on in an episodic fashion where the boy falls in with a bad crowd and proves too much for Samantha to handle, coming between her and her boyfriend. It's a shame because The Kid With A Bike's best scenes surround Cyril and Guy. Cyril and Samantha don't have the same emotional connection - with each other or the audience - as the Dardennes, taking the 'less is more' style a little far, never reveal her wants and motivations as to why she would openly welcome this unruly kid into her home without a moment's thought.

Even when he's acting up, Doret's Cyril is such a compelling character, the most single-minded and determined to grace the screen in some time; running everywhere, there's a real bounce and energy to him, and Doret excels at being tough and soft often at the same time. And he's got a bike, a metaphor that is wide open to interpretation.