The Kid with a Bike

Cyril is eleven and lives in a children's home in Belgium. His father promised to come back for him, and Cyril refuses to believe he won't. He escapes again and again to the old apartment, looking for his father and for his bike, the one thing he still has from him. During one of these escapes he grabs onto a stranger, Samantha, a hairdresser, who soon agrees to take him on weekends. She doesn't really know why. Cyril, angry and wild, tests her every day. And a local small-time dealer is watching him too.

The Dardenne brothers have made some of the most important films of the last thirty years, and this is one of their warmest. As always, the camera follows close behind the characters, and the style is plain and urgent. But here there is a little more light: summer, some brief bursts of Beethoven, and Cécile de France as Samantha, a woman who chooses to love a child who keeps pushing her away. Thomas Doret as Cyril is astonishing, all fists and speed and hurt.

It is a simple story, almost a fairy tale, about a boy abandoned by the person who should love him most, and saved by someone who had no obligation to. The scene where his father finally tells him the truth is devastating. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes. Short, tense, and deeply moving. A perfect introduction to the Dardennes.