Susan Granger’s review of “The Kid With a Bike” (Sundance Selects)
Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, this is about a young boy who has been abandoned by both parents and is living temporarily in a state-run home for boys in the industrial town of Seraing in Belgium. As the poignant story begins, wiry, 11 year-old Cyril (Thomas Doret) runs away to find the apartment he used to live in. He’s frantically searching for the bike that his father promised him, convinced that finding this bicycle will somehow put the shattered pieces of his life back together again.
When he’s discovered, he, literally, grabs onto a gentle stranger to keep orphanage authorities from re-capturing him. Samantha (Cecile de France), a sympathetic hairdresser, agrees to become Cyril’s foster mother, allowing him to visit on weekends, and it’s Samantha who helps him retrieve the beloved bike. Since troubled Cyril still fervently believes that his father really wants him back, Samantha also tracks down the deadbeat dad, Guy (Jeremie Renier), working as a restaurant chef. But since this is not a fairy tale and, instead, is firmly grounded in harsh reality, Cyril is rejected once again and, despairing, falls into the criminal clutches of Wes (Egon Di Mateo), a shrewd drug dealer/thief, always eager for new recruits.
Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne enjoy exploring the lives of working-class people, and this coming-of-age morality tale fits right in with the humanistic theme of their body of work, including “Rosetta” (1999) and “The Child” (2005). Artfully avoiding sentimentality, they understand yet understate a child’s basic need for parental love and acceptance, always coming back to a position of hope and unshakable faith in the healing power of redemption. Alain Marcoen’s naturalistic cinematography is notable for its extended tracking shots of red-shirted Cyril pedaling as fast as he can, artfully edited by Marie-Helene Dozo.
In French with English subtitles, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Kid With a Bike” is an emotionally restrained yet compassionate 8 – and pay special attention to the potent concluding shot.
