Snap Judgment: Movies

L'Enfant

Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Bruno (Jérémie Renier), a feral, 20-year-old petty thief, fathers a child with his 18-year-old girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François)-- then, without telling her, sells him on the black market. Having committed this unforgivable act, he tries to undo it. Unfolding in real time on the scruffy working-class streets of industrial Belgium, this harrowingly intense odyssey charts Bruno's desperate search for redemption. Like the Dardennes' earlier gem "Rosetta," the masterly "L'Enfant" walked off with the Palme d'Or in Cannes.

© 2006