With The Hunger Games set to devour all comers at the box office this weekend, alternatives are few and far between. However, the post awards season malaise seems to have subsided and fare is of a markedly higher quality, albeit thin on the ground. If the child murder premise of said hunger games isn’t your bag, then Dexter Fletcher’s directorial debut Wild Bill, US Navy Seal propaganda pic Act of Valour and intimate Belgian fable The Kid with a Bike round out an eclectic line up.
Filial duo Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have forged a steady career regaling the struggles of the Belgian underclass. They are proponents of the plucky underdog, whether that be the desperate eponymous teenager striving for a better life in Rosetta (1999) or immigrant couple Sokol and Lorna in The Silence of Lorna (2008). Their stories are always small in scale and the hopes and dreams of humanity lie at the centre of their narratives. The sorry backdrop of industrial Wallonia often makes an appearance to emphasise the despair and degradation surrounding their players. The Kid with a Bike is no different, focussing as it does on 12-year old Cyril (Thomas Doret), a young boy abandoned by his father at a local care home and apparently all alone in the world.
crash/burn 