Des voleurs

Le Gamin au vélo (The kid with a bike)

Crit

This engaging Belgian film is, if nothing else, an effective advertisement for bicycle locks; so much distress could have been prevented if Cyril (Thomas Doret) had had one.

Some suspension of belief is required: after Cyril's father abandons him (and sells his damn bike, which for practical purposes is worse), he lucks into an encounter with exactly the person he needs, the hair stylist Samantha (Cécile De France), who, for reasons we can't fathom, agrees to be his foster parent on weekends, and surrenders much of her existence to a child who, even apart from a potentially disastrous search for a father figure, is on a desperate quest for any element of his life her can control, even if only playing with a faucet to annoy her by wasting water.