It’s not until Samantha (Hereafter’s Cécile de France) enters his life that someone takes such a passionate and vested interest in giving him the love and guidance he has never experienced. It’s not an easy road, and Samantha needs time and Cyril’s trust, before she can truly win him over and help him become more of a person than the rest of the world demands. He succumbs to influences that may prove tragic and it’s only Cyril’s resilience and luck that will be his saving graces, trying Samantha’s faith to the bitter end.
As the credits rolled, a spotlight hit the Dardenne brothers in the balcony of the Alice Tully Hall, who stood up and waved to an applauding audience. It was a precious moment that I didn’t realize would soon repeat itself at each subsequent screening with the director in attendance. None of the other spotlights (or the one preceding one which I missed) had quite the same impact.
Melissa Anderson from The Village Voice introduced the Dardenne brothers at the beginning and conducted the Q&A at the end. They were quite forthcoming and entertained a series of questions from the audience ranging from their musical choice of Beethoven at one point to the ATV they drove in to follow the cameraman while he filmed the boy racing down a desolate road at night.
Most of the questions pertained to Thomas Doret, who played the boy Cyril. He, like many of their actors was an amateur, but learned quickly. They spotted something in him right away, as he was the 5th child to audition for them on the very first day of casting; he read an emotional scene at the beginning involving a conversation over the phone with the father who rejected his character. Doret practices karate in real life—a discipline of the mind and body. With a 45-day rehearsal process followed by a 50-day shoot that came in handy for such a taxing period of time.
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