The Kid with a Bike (2011)

2.5/4

Films that embrace the use of subtle storytelling have the duty of attaching audiences completely with the emotion of the characters. Directors Jean-Piree and Luc Dardenne give us the characters, but only brief tastes of their heart and soul. One can help but think of Vittorio De Sica's subtle masterpiece Bicycle Thieves (1948) while watching this film. Both passionately utilize realism and tell stories of the desperation of human nature. The Dardenne brothers capture the realism, but what is realism if we are not convinced what we are watching really matters? Telling the simple story of Cyril Catoul, and 11-year-old boy who must live in foster care when he is abandoned by his father. He turns to Samantha, a single woman with natural paternal instincts, to get him out of the foster home. She gives him her love without a moments hesitation, but he is blind to this rare affection and needs help understanding. Instead Cyril befriends a small-time criminal, Wes (Egon Di Mateo), who deceptively gains Cyril's trust. In a wave of fear and violence Cyril finally catches a glimpse of the light that has been shining on him the entire film, that light being Samantha. Thomas Doret, who plays Cyril, and Cecile De France, who plays Samantha, have a beautiful chemistry, but the effectiveness of the film falls on Doret's young shoulders. As a tortured, taciturn youth trying desperately holding on to the notion that his coward of a father will return, Doret plays his role with a fitting innocence and reluctance. Where the flaws arise from are not out of lack of good characters or performances, but out of a story that shoots itself in the foot with a far too overly simplistic nature. What this film desperately needed was some raw emotion. We get that in the scene where Cyril is finally told the truth and the cowardice of his father is revealed. Unfortunately, in other vital scenes, most notably in the surprisingly unmoving ending, there is a lack of the powerful emotional resonance that was necessary for this film to make me care.