Lorna's Silence

I had really high hopes for this film after absolutely loving their last film. Unfortunately, I was a little disappointed. This movie is definitely pretty good but not close to L'Enfant.

Like L'Enfant, this film delves into the seedy underworld. Lorna is a young Albanian immigrant in Belgium who wants money to start a snack bar. Through her boyfriend, she ends up agreeing to help the Russian mafia for the money. The plan - marry a junkie so she can get her citizenship. Then when he inevitably dies, she's already a citizen. Then she will be free to marry a Russian mobster who wants to emigrate to Belgium. The problem arises when the junkie decides to get clean and the Russians decide to murder him. Wow, this sounds like it could be an episode of Damages!

As I write about this, I realize that maybe I did like this movie quite a bit. Damn those high expectations! On its own, this movie is in fact quite good. But L'Enfant completely blew me (and Jeremy) away. It was so tense and unyielding. This film isn't quite like that. There's a little bit of room to breathe in this one. Who would have thought that would be a bad thing?

I did like seeing the main guy from L'Enfant as the junkie though.

To sum up:
Good movie + Unreal expectations = Begrudging acceptance of high quality.

Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
2008, U.S. Release: 2009
DVD