Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Starring: Thomas Doret, Cecile De France, Jeremie Renier, Egon Di Mateo
Running time: 87 minutes
Certificate: 12A
Extras: Return To Seraing Featurette With Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Interview With Cecile De France, Trailer
Revolving a story around children is risky business. It can work beautifully – see Spielberg’s EMPIRE OF THE SUN (1987) – or can go terribly wrong – such the Macaulay Culkin vehicle RICHIE RICH (1994). For THE KID WITH A BIKE, the Dardenne brothers have chosen to set a film around exactly that, a kid… erm, with a bike. The titular child is Cyril (Doret), who resides, short term, in a foster home as a result of his incompetent father (Renier). Whilst here he grows tired of waiting for his father’s return and begins searching for him, eventually leading him to Samantha (De France), a hairdresser who fosters Cyril in an effort to guide him onto the right path.
The premise of THE KID WITH A BIKE is very simple – the story of a child coming to terms with a parent’s desertion – and as such, it was always going to live or die based on a simple narrative element: the relationships between the characters, and how easily we were able to connect with them. As masters of this type of manipulation, the Dardenne’s have unsurprisingly succeeded in this task, but not spectacularly. Samantha, as the modern-day saint, is incredibly likeable and her situation entirely sympathetic. However, the film struggles with its other characters: Thomas Doret is truly brilliant as Cyril, but there is some over-egging of the missing father angle – he looks up to a street kid as a father figure, and rebels against Samantha with inappropriate regularity. Additionally, the father himself is laid out completely, and there is nothing to him other than his refusal to look after his son. A deeper exploration into his psyche and motivations could have been very effective.
THE KID WITH A BIKE is almost what you’d expect, but it just falls short. Performances are excellent but there isn’t enough substance for the story to be truly effective, at least not on the level it seems the filmmakers were aiming for. Overall, it’s a pleasant enough film but could have been more.
Extras: ‘Return To Seraing’ featurette is a very interesting look at the production, whilst the interview with Cecile De France is average – she’s nice enough but it’s no Parkinson.
THE KID WITH A BIKE is released on Blu-ray and DVD 23rd July.
