The Little Thief (1988) Reviews

It is once again a rather obscure French movie which not much people have seen here in Listal. It was directed by Claude Miller, a very good French director who passed away recently and never really reached a great success abroad which is too bad. The first interesting thing about this movie is that it was in fact the last screenplay written by the great François Truffaut but he died before he could direct it and he eventually gave it to Claude Miller. While watching this, you see indeed a lot of similarities with ‘Les quatre cent coups’, Truffaut’s seminal classic, and it makes sense as the original story was supposed to be about a young boy and a young girl, but Truffaut wisely decided to focus on the boy who was eventually wonderfully played by Jean-Pierre Léaut. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, obviously, it never reaches the level of ‘Les quatre cent coups’ (it is one of the best French movies ever made so it would be asking a lot from it) but I thought it was still a decent drama. Above all, it features a solid performance by a very young Charlotte Gainsbourg who has recently become Lars Von Trier’s new muse. To conclude, even though it is nothing really amazing, it remains a pretty good drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.