Film Review: The Kid with a Bike

GRAEME TUCKETT

REVIEW: THE KID WITH A BIKE (M) (87 min)

Directed by Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Starring Cecile de France, Thomas Doret

The winner of last year's Cannes Grand Prix, The Kid With a Bike is a tough and sparingly realised gem of a film. Simple, brief, but perfectly done.

The Kid is 11-year-old Cyril.

He's a resilient boy, used to holding his own and more on the pretty grim housing estate he has grown up on. But when his dad abandons him, and leaves to the care of an institution, Cyril's facade of self-possession begins to crack.

A stolen bicycle sets him off on a near obsessive quest to understand and overcome his old man's staggering act of selfishness.

Into Cyril's fractured life comes Cecile de France, the local hairdresser, who finds herself caring for Cyril a few days a week, and who quickly realises just what a damaged and challenging kid he can be.
This is wonderful film making.

The Dardenne's brother's script is incapable of ringing a single false note. Within this deceptively simple fable, there is a world to be found. Cyril's journey is the journey of every child who ever lived, but magnified, intensified, and made crueller than it ever should have been.

It's an audacious film that will consciously refer to and knowing update Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle Thieves. The Kid With a Bike is a good enough film to get away with it.

This is a luminous and unforgettable film. Go and have a look.

Also opening this week, Chinese Takeaway is a well done and very watchable Argentinean comedy drama, starring Ricardo Darin as a man who takes in a young, lost, Chinese student with his own quite tragic tale to tell. Language and cultural barriers yield some fine comedy, while the film avoids the saccharine that the inevitable American remake will not.

Recommended.

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