An arresting portrait of one woman’s gradual slide, Our Children (À Perdre la Raison) represents another tightly wound study of domestic malaise from Belgian auteur Joachim Lafosse (Private Property). Featuring a riveting lead turn from Emilie Dequenne as a young mother caught between two men (A Prophet stars Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup) in a claustrophobic nightmare, it’s a gloomy and penetrating psychological drama.
The story of Belgian schoolteacher, Murielle (Dequenne), and Moroccan immigrant, Mounir (Rahim), starts off on a rather upbeat note with them falling madly in love and deciding to live together in the home of Mounir’s surrogate father, Doctor Pinget (Arestrup). But as Murielle quickly learns, the physician casts a paralyzing shadow over his young ward. When Murielle gives birth to a third child, the burden it places on the two parents is exacerbated by the doctor’s increasingly guru-like sway over Mounir. And as Murielle gets further sucked into the oppressive homestead, her escape routes slowly dry up.
Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter
