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Cécile De France, Thomas Doret, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Egon Di Mateo

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival and a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, the deeply moving new film by the Dardenne brothers delves into the emotio... read more read more...nal life of troubled 11-year-old Cyril (Thomas Doret). When his father (Jérémie Renier) abandons him, Cyril obsessively searches for his bicycle - placing his last bit of hope in this symbol of their relationship. Almost by accident, he becomes the ward of a kind hairdresser (Cécile de France), who seems surprised to find herself so determined to help him. With his wild, unpredictable behavior and his disastrous search for father figures, Cyril risks losing her - though she refuses to give up without a fight. -- (C) IFC

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76% liked it

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112 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 27 min.

Directed by: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne

Release Date: March 16, 2012

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DVD Release Date: February 12, 2013

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Flixster Reviews (401)

  • SirPant
    August 21, 2012
    SirPant
    The Kid with a Bike can be a frustrating film to watch at times but only because it's so compelling and well acted. Thomas Doret is instantly believable as the abandoned boy looking for his father and in turn looking for somewhere to belong. It's a slow burner but the conclusion ... read moremore than makes up for it, it's certainly one of my favourites of the year so far - I'll be looking into other films by Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne asap.
  • hobster1
    May 9, 2012
    hobster1
    Coming of age tales heavily rely on the emotional connection that audiences share with the protagonist. If we can't identify with the star, then the story may not have merit. Even the best child actors can drift into precociousness. This is not the case here, as young actor Thoma... read mores Doret is captivating in a natural rendition. The Dardenne brothers get credit for allowing our lead character to just react. When faced with the reality of his situation, he underplays, sometimes in silence, which speaks much louder than any dialogue ever could. His acting is less of a performance than the candidly captured portrait of an actual 11 year old boy. He commands attention.

    Doret's talent makes up for the bare bones details that sometimes remain underdeveloped. Yet the sketchiness of the narrative feels like real life. For me the hardest thing for me to understand was his dad's capacity to disassociate from his pre-teen son. How could a father abandon his child after 11 years so easily? The justification he gives doesn't substantiate the magnitude of his decision. At first the lack of specifics is frustrating. However It provided a justification for Cyril's subsequent misbehavior. The youngster's inability to accept his father's abandonment matched mine. He was an unruly little boy but I felt as he did. Despite his unmanageable behavior, Cyril always remained a sympathetic individual at heart.
  • 366weirdmovies
    May 2, 2012
    366weirdmovies
    A Belgian boy tries to reunite with the father who abandoned him; a single hairdresser takes an interest in his plight. Young Thomas Doret is excellent as the understandably troubled boy who craves love but instinctively sabotages his chances in this thoughtful heartstring-tugger.
  • dunmyer
    April 8, 2012
    dunmyer
    The Dardennes Brothers' "The Kid with a Bike," which tied for second prize at Cannes last year, is what you would expect from this filmmaking team: a brutally frank depiction of human callousness. Here the victim is a boy about 10 years old suddenly and inexplicably abandoned by ... read morehis father, his only parent.

    The film opens with the boy already in an orphanage. The abandonment has just happened. The boy is frantically looking for his father, seeming to be in denial about what is going on. Quite serendipitously, he meets a generous woman in her 30s who starts to care for the boy just as inexplicably as his father stopped.

    She helps him in his quest to find Dad and tries to re-stabilize his life. But all is not rosy. The boy becomes intensely devoted to a drug dealer who is expert at manipulating lost boys. Watching this older boy "seduce" the younger boy by acting like a big brother is fascinating.

    This film has a brilliantly acute sense of how gangs attract lost children by giving them a feeling of belonging. Scratch the surface of most young boys, and what you get is a profound need to feel loved by older boys. Make a lost boy feel loved, and he'll do almost anything for you. --unfinished--
  • DrZeek
    April 2, 2012
    DrZeek
    Cyril: Dad! I'm here.

    Given that the month of March was packed with an unusual amount of high budget, blockbuster films, I figured I would balance things out with a couple of independent/arthouse features as well. One of these was The Kid with a Bike, a Belgian film from the Da... read morerdenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc). This film follows a young boy dealing with being abandoned by his father and attempting to forge new relationships with other potential role models and caretakers. The film is very naturalistic, a key type of style when it comes to the Dardenne's work, as it plays out as more character-driven, as opposed to story-driven and plays around a lot with ambiguity, despite straddling a somewhat familiar path. With that in mind, the film is very good, well-acted, and filled with moments that evoke emotion as well as thoughts based around developing more of an understanding for one's self, rather than letting the film tell you what to think.

    read the whole review at thecodeiszeek.com
  • c0up
    March 31, 2012
    c0up
    'The Kid with a Bike'. A superb young lead performance by Thomas Doret, difficult and frustrating at times, but a beautifully constructed, very real drama.

    Cyril Catoul is a kid whose absolute tenacity you can't help but admire, a character you completely sympathise with, and th... read moreen the frustration kicks in, as he goes out of his way to push away a woman showing nothing but warmth and love, while holding onto the hope of his father and all that means.

    You certainly go on a journey with him as his character, and he's a wonderfully complex one at that. The ending, with Cyril's quiet acceptance at the retaliation of the boy he struck, shows maturity well beyond his years. An acknowledgment of the ups and downs of life, and consequences of his actions.

    What the hell was up with the music signalling each of the four acts though? the film functioned fine without music the rest of the way through, and it was incredibly distracting, and added no meaning, while feeling cheap, and tacked on.
  • blacksheepboy
    January 21, 2012
    blacksheepboy
    Although interesting at first, this drama proves to be a frustrating effort that doesn't seem to have much to say. The Dardennes continue to invest in their neo-realism but this time the characters are not well constructed and the conflicts seem artificial. Besides, the young pro... read moretagonist is way too dislikable.
  • moviewaffle
    March 29, 2012
    moviewaffle
    Following a chance encounter, hairdresser De France allows wild child Doret to leave his juvenile home and stay with her at the weekends. Upon discovering the child's father,Renier, wants nothing to do with him, she takes him into her care on a permanent basis, battling to keep h... read moreim on the straight and narrow, and away from local drug dealer Di Mateo.

    It sounds like the basis for a nineties TV movie, the type that usually starred Meredith Baxter Birney, and in many hands it could have amounted to such. The writing directing duo The Dardenne Brothers steer away from any schmaltz and sentimentality thankfully. Their best choice was to avoid a classic narrative structure, there's no typical beginning or ending, it's just a few weeks in the lives of the characters. The story may be cliched but the characters and the actors portraying them give it a vitality. I'm a big fan of underwriting characters, it allows the viewer to fill in the blanks and you become a lot more invested than if a screenwriter is shoving their idea of a great character down your throat. The Dardennes tell us almost nothing about the people in this story which is probably why I found them so engaging. The backstories forming in my mind are probably totally different to those of any ten other people who might watch this.
    Doret is incredible, a non-actor who was plucked off the street. There are very few great child actors as they almost inevitably make the the mistake of acting above their years, coming across as small adults rather than children. Doret makes no such mistake, possibly because he simply doesn't know how. He's completely natural and his awkward, uncomfortable movements are perfect for the character. I usually despise child characters in films but I was absolutely behind this one. It sounds crazy but the three best performances of the year so far have come from two twenty year old actresses and a twelve year old amateur.
    After a somewhat failed stint in English language productions, De France is back on home soil and should stay there as she won't get many roles as good as this in the anglicized world. With her muscular arms she looks like she could beat up any grown man but plausibly struggles to control Doret in his wilder moments.
    Kitchen sink dramas like this aren't usually known for being easy on the eye but Alain Marcoen's cinematography is full of eye-popping colour, proving that grittiness doesn't have to equal ugliness.
    The Dardennes end this in a way which will likely aggravate many viewers but I found it a perfect denouement.
  • gator681
    March 26, 2012
    gator681
    Like most boys of his age, Cyril(Thomas Doret) is full of energy, which helps in his numerous escape attempts from a chldren's home where his father(Jeremie Renier) placed him about a month previously. On one such attempt, he gets as far as his old apartment building where he ha... read mores to be surgically detached from Samantha(Cecile De France), a hairdresser. Not having any hard feelings, she buys him back his old bicycle which his father had sold without notifying him. In return, he asks to stay the weekends with her to which she agrees. However, even with the help of her boyfriend Gilles(Laurent Caron), they have trouble keeping him under control.

    Written and directed by the Dardenne brothers with their usual humanism and care, "The Kid with a Bike" is a simple title of a simple, yet subtly moving, story about a complex issue that involves responsibility at many levels. Cyril's father has surrendered his familial responsibilities in order to start over in a new town. That in return causes Cyril to grow up much quicker than normal with his father not present to guide or raise him. Samantha, accepting society's responsibility for its children, takes up a bit of the slack but can only do so much as guardian, not parent, as she owns her own business. My only problem with this otherwise engaging film might be with the epilogue, even as I possibly grasp its meaning.
  • panta2
    September 8, 2012
    panta2
    Another wonderful drama written and directed by the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who may be the most consistently high-achieving filmmakers of our time! This time it is a story of a 12-year-old boy who turns to a woman for comfort after his father has abandoned ... read morehim... Starring Cécile de France and Thomas Doret this is one of the film achievements with a soul of its own. Produced through companies in Belgium, France and Italy this outstanding art work still keeps the naturalistic style of the Dardenne brothers' earlier works, but many critics noticed that a brighter aesthetic than usual was used. Another new thing in this movie is that the directors this time are using music. This movie premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and won the festival's Grand Prix.

    Luc Dardenne and his brother Jean-Pierre had for a long time had the idea of a film about "a woman who helps a boy emerge from the violence that holds him prisoner." Writing the screenplay took one year including a few breaks.

    This is for everyone who prefers heartfelt, boldly direct film, revisiting the film-makers' classic themes of parenthood, trust and love.

View All The Kid with a Bike Reviews

Critic Reviews

Tom Charity
January 7, 2013
Tom Charity, CNN.com

There is not a wasted shot in this stripped down, pared back fable. Yet, it accrues a deep and lasting power. You won't see many better this year. Full Review

Colin Covert
April 13, 2012
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

The film should be required viewing for everyone who has lost faith in the power of random acts of kindness. Full Review

Tom Long
March 30, 2012
Tom Long, Detroit News

"The Kid With a Bike" vibrates with desperation, frustration and the simple unfairness of life, leavened with glimpses of hope. Full Review

Ann Hornaday
March 30, 2012
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Cyril is one of the most inspiringly resilient, self-aware young characters to arrive on-screen in recent memory... Full Review

Moira MacDonald
March 29, 2012
Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

Hunched over the handlebars, the boy's body seems to carve a hole in the wind. And we watch as this unhappy, rejected child makes some terrible choices, some of which make us want to look away. Full Review

Ty Burr
March 29, 2012
Ty Burr, Boston Globe

"The Kid With A Bike'' is, remarkably, about hope - about the connections people forge when the ones they've been given desert them. Full Review

Rafer Guzman
March 23, 2012
Rafer Guzman, Newsday

The Dardennes' quiet, naturalistic style strips this story of melodrama but not of emotion. Full Review

Mick LaSalle
March 22, 2012
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Without diminishing the boy's intensity or making him in any way ingratiating, the Dardennes take us into his mind, and we begin to appreciate not only his predicament but his resiliency. Full Review

Michael Phillips
March 22, 2012
Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

The Dardennes' latest is one of their best, a memorable cinematic portrait of troubled youth and soul-saving charity. Full Review

Roger Ebert
March 22, 2012
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Young Thomas Doret fills the role with natural sincerity and focus, and not a second that seems contrived. Full Review

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    • Samantha: Don't be upset if it's not the way you dream it'll be.
    • Cyril Catoul: I'm not dreaming.
    • Samantha: He knows you're new!
    • Le libraire: He'll forget me.
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