The Kid With a Bike

When the young boy Cyril (Thomas Doret) stabs his foster mother Samantha (Cecile De France) in the arm and escapes from her home, it is one of the only times we see “The Kid With a Bike” from her perspective. For the first time, we realize how much she loves Cyril and how much she struggles to control him. Like any kid, neither he nor us can know how deeply a parent’s love goes. For that matter, we never fully know how much Cyril loves his absentee father or his bike that takes him wherever he needs to go.

“The Kid With a Bike” is a lovely film about attachments and the complex emotions that go along with them. It’s one of the best movies of the year.

It begins a month after Cyril’s father Guy (Jeremie Renier) abandons him at an orphanage. For weeks now, Cyril has been desperately calling his home and getting only a disconnected line. He blindly believes his father is still there. His father would never leave him, and more importantly, he would never forget to give Cyril his bike. Cyril evades his supervisors and his teachers to see his house for himself, and we realize instantly that Cyril is a smart, energetic kid with a relentless, unhealthy obsession.

And yet his pain is more than understandable. The child actor Thomas Doret wears a mysteriously burdened face. There is subtle conflict and depth in Doret’s performance in the way Cyril is so highly determined, rebellious and even aggressive. He’s difficult, but not unlikeable.

Samantha, a hairdresser, sees Cyril’s charms too, and allows him to stay with her on weekends. She even helps track down Cyril’s father, whose blunt explanation for why he left is heartbreaking.

Each character in this story has an attachment that gets them into trouble. For Samantha, its Cyril, despite how little affection he shows. For Guy, it’s his new job, and it keeps him away from his son. For Cyril, it’s his father and his bike. He catches a boy trying to steal his bike and fights him to get it back. But the shocking moment is when he presses Samantha for the hair color of the boy she purchased the bike back from to see if the thief is the same. We get a sense from this question the lengths he may go to for the loves in his life.

That’s why it seems so effortless and compelling when we see Cyril get caught up with a gang of drug dealers. Directors and screenwriters Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (“The Son”) have crafted a story that is small and simple, but with characters we come to know well enough to fully understand how badly things can turn out.

Their camera is handheld and rugged, and it keeps its distance from Cyril like a parent standing close by desperately trying to reach him. One of the film’s best shots is when a gangbanger pushes Cyril out of his car onto the side of a gravel road. The pale wide shot seems to suggest how far Cyril has come, how far he will still go and how alone he is at the destination.

I too have grown attached to Cyril. His portrayal, his depth and his rough-around-the-edges goodness have made him and “The Kid With a Bike” wonderfully warm and infectious.

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