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The Child

L'Enfant

2005

Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Jérémie Rénier, Déborah François, Jérémie Segard, Fabrizio Rongione ...

7.1

6,704

Drama Sonia (François) and Bruno (Renier), a young couple living off her benefit and the thefts committed by his gang, have a new source of money: their newborn son. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, with L'Enfant, propose a very political vision of Belgian (and European) society.

	Author	Review
United States	Manohla Dargis The New York Times	"The Dardennes know how to build a scene for maximum tension (...) The Dardennes' background in documentary also partly explains their astonishing visual style."	POS
United States	Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"The Dardennes achieve their effects through an intense visual focus. They follow their characters as if their camera can look nowhere else (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)"	POS
United Kingdom	Jamie Woolley BBC	"Another stark but gripping construction of social realism (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Ed Gonzalez Slant	"Every remarkable composition and movement in 'L’Enfant' exudes compassion and remorse, evoking a profound sense of transcendental, existential, spiritual, or emotional unease (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"'The Child' has nothing to do with miserablism, and everything to do with fine acting and transcendentally powerful, compassionate drama (…) Rating: ★★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Renier and Francois give deeply affecting performances that help soften the film’s harsh blows. But only in the compassionate eye of the Dardennes do these three children achieve a state of grace (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"	POS

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