The Kid with a Bike (Thursday, October 6, 2011) (86)

Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne are together one of the most interesting writing/directing forces of recent years. Their neo-neorealist style is shown beautifully in this film, an examination of a fairy tale... but again from their neo-neorealist style. Cryil (Thomas Doret) is an abandoned kid who has one love in the world, the bike his father gave him before giving him to the orphanage in the small Belgian town where the story takes place. He is found by Samantha (Cecile de France) who takes him in on weekends as long as he behaves himself. She is his belle, and he is, effectively her knight in shining armor. Things go slightly pear-shaped when his is rejected once and for all by his father, Guy (Jeremie Renier). There is an inherent self-referential quality to the tale, of course, in that Renier is effectively rejecting the kid he was in the Dardenne's La Promesse (1996), Bruno, making this film as much an analysis of their oeuvre as it is a story in its own right. I love that the Dardennes dare to make a fairy tale in their realistic style and, of course, they succeed brilliantly. It's still a slightly small movie and doesn't pack the wallop of La Promesse or The Son (perhaps because it's ever so slightly more complicated than those masterpieces). Still, this is wonderful and and fun to be inside their world for 87 minutes.

Stars: 3.5 of 4