An average movie

By now, I have seen most of the movies directed by the Dardenne Brothers and I have been a big fan of their work for a very long time but, to be honest, it wasn't really love at first sight with them. In the mid-90’s, they finally broke through the international scene with this movie. Indeed, it was a big critical success, they even won the prestigious Golden Palm at the Cannes film festival so I had some rather high expectations. Unfortunately, even though I thought it was a decent feature, I can’t say I was really blown away by the whole thing though. I mean, sure, Émilie Dequenne who was just about 18 years old, was quite impressive and there is no denying that their clinical, almost neo-realist directing style was quite effective. And yet, the whole thing was just so dreary, so gloomy, as a result, I had a really hard time to connect with the main character and what she was going through. I mean, it is not that it was depressing, it was more that it was, well, a little bit boring. On the other hand, 10 years later, Jennifer Lawrence would have her breakthrough with a very similar movie called ‘Winter’s Bone’ and the biggest issue with this movie is that the story was really far-fetched. Anyway, to conclude, even though I thought it was rather disappointing, it was a still an intriguing drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10