L'Enfant (The Child)
Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: March 24, 2006 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 34 Critic Reviews
Positive:
32
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
L'Enfant is intended as a pointed critique of pop culture's celebration of arrested adolescence. The title could refer to Renier's baby, Renier himself, or even the gang of schoolboy robbers that he's gathered around himself. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
The Belgian directing brothers deal with themes they have made their own: the difficulty of being moral in an amoral world and the grinding, unforgiving nature of reality for those forced by poverty to live on the margins of society. These are not easy films to experience, but they are uncompromising and unforgettable. Read full review
100
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Astonishingly vivid. The illusion of reality is so nearly complete in this magnificent French-language film by the Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne that the screen becomes a perfectly transparent window on lives hanging in the balance.
100
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Throughout this raw, often brilliant drama, the Dardennes refuse to judge these deeply flawed characters. They instead maintain a moral objectivity that ultimately leaves room for the possibility of redemption, no matter how dire the sins committed. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
Powerfully uplifting precisely because it's so horrifying. Read full review
100
SalonAndrew O'Hehir
One of the greatest films of recent years. Read full review
100
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Harrowingly intense odyssey. Read full review
100
PremiereGlenn Kenny
For all its seeming simplicity, this is an emotionally and intellectually complex film that holds the viewer in a grip as tight as any classic thriller you can name. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Whether the title refers to the baby or the thief remains an open question, and the viewer is left to decide whether the theme of redemption should be perceived in Christian terms. This builds to a suspenseful climax, and as in Hitchcock's best work, that suspense is morally inflected. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Here is a film where God does not intervene and the directors do not mistake themselves for God. It makes the solutions at the ends of other pictures seem like child's play. Read full review
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Stephen Cole
Few directors working today make films with the grace and magisterial power of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's best work. Read full review
91
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
Thanks to a combination of fluid camerawork and careful pacing, the Belgian writer-directors have produced a compelling narrative that sounds, if not a cautionary note, a worried one. Read full review
90
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The brothers have given us another treasure. Once again they have made a drama of redemption, and once again they convince us that it is possible. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
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. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Like all the Dardenne s' films, L'Enfant embraces a peculiarly ascetic brand of what, in other filmmakers' hands, might seem like cheap melodrama. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
The arrival of closing credits feels like a trap door. The film is over, and, suddenly, we have to leave these people. The directors make no guarantee for their futures, but the strength of their filmmaking inspires you to hope for the best. Read full review
88
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
L'Enfant begins with the birth of a child, but its real concern is the moral rebirth of a man. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Doesn't feel so much like a movie as a glimpse into the extraordinarily messed-up life of a young man about to make the simple yet life-changing realization that actions have consequences, and that other people matter, too. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Sonia may seem happy-go-lucky at the start, but grief steels her. It makes her grow up very fast. She becomes a kind of heroine in the course of the film, which ultimately owes its stature to her presence. Read full review
83
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
What makes the Dardennes' films so powerful is their refusal to judge, positively or negatively, their characters. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
The Dardennes' most accessible film. Their handheld camera catches tiny flickers of emotion that few filmmakers come near; you feel as if you're watching the movements of a soul. Read full review
80
VarietyScott Foundas
Those masters of small-scale realism, Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, have created yet another beautifully acted, exquisitely observed morality tale in The Child. Read full review
80
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Above all, this is an action film--or, better, a transaction film. It's not just that the Dardennes orchestrate an exciting motor scooter purse-snatching and a prolonged hot pursuit. L'Enfant is an action film because every act that happens is shown to have a consequence. Read full review
80
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
As Dardenne films go, with their slow, minutely observed journeys from despair to faint hope, L'Enfant is a horror movie of sorts, and for a few minutes at least, a kind of thriller. Read full review
80
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
The Dardennes know how to build a scene for maximum tension: you yearn to find out who bought Jimmy, and whether his fate lies with a childless couple or an organ mill. But because they make moral thrillers, what matters isn't only actions and events but their emotional, spiritual and psychological costs. Read full review
80
Dallas ObserverRob Nelson
Tough as it is, L'Enfant nudges both its protagonist and its audience toward unlikely affection. Tough as it is, L'Enfant commands our care by practicing what it preaches. No wonder the brothers call it a love story. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Like all the Dardennes' films, L'Enfant is a vivid, Dickensian report from the most dispossessed precincts of society. But the film concludes on an optimistic note, at least for the Dardennes. It's still the worst of times, the filmmakers seem to suggest, but we're still capable of humanity, if not hope. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleMarrit Ingman
It is an observant and effective study in character and setting, suitably grave and distinctively realized. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
It makes sense that L'Enfant has been hailed as a masterpiece, since a masterpiece is what it's trying, in every unvarnished frame, to be. If you wandered unknowingly into the film, however, you would see this: a stark, fascinating, and naggingly detached character study. Read full review
75
New York PostV.A. Musetto
It's expertly directed in a low-key, naturalistic way that brings to mind French auteur Robert Bresson. It's also emotionally forceful and contains heartbreaking performances. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerSean Axmaker
What it lacks is an intensity, a passion at the center...It is, nonetheless, a lovely and often powerful film. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleRuthe Stein
For all the squalor and extremely upsetting subject matter, you can't take your eyes off the screen. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterRay Bennett
The film clearly wishes to explore the topic of children having children, but it only inspires a great desire to smack them both. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
There is something willed and implausible at the heart of L’Enfant, beginning with the child himself--the first non-crying, non-hungry infant in human history, let alone in cinema. Read full review
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