Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Kid with a Bike

(Le gamin au vélo, France, 2011)

Cyril is twelve, and his father has rejected him. But Cyril is deeply in denial about it, and is as tenacious as a snapping turtle. It takes a lot of convincing to make him accept that the old man is just not interested in him. Meanwhile, he does exactly what he want to, when he wants to, and fuck everybody else. This is just not the sort of movie for me, since I don’t much like kids, boys in particular. I suppose I should have felt sorry for him, but I just didn’t. In fact, I only stuck around to see if he would get anything that was coming to him. He did, but only a little. And I guess he reformed, some. But I didn’t care. It’s entirely possible you will like this more than I did. All the critics did, but then it just looks tailor-made for critics to love.