The Kid with a Bike (2011)
A troubled boy finds an informal foster mom who tries her best to keep in line. That's the story and in way that's the whole depth of the story. The details—his rebellion, his responding to love, his being suckered by a drug dealer—are expected and interesting and beautifully told. The story has a slightly polished realism to separate it from its forebear, the great classic "The Bicycle Thief," and there might be a slight gap in motivations to explain, but in general you get sucked into this situation and the awkward relationship between the two. It is a tale appreciated in its siimple telling.
I had a foster child for a couple of years at an age close to this boy's, and there is a lot here that makes vivid sense. The woman, perhaps too lovely for normal realism (played by Cecile De France), is nevertheless sincere and quite smart in her mothering skills. She gets the boy to live with her almost by chance, and follows that chance, and learns to give him some rope and to also reign him in by example and through compassion.
But even this isn't enough. That's one of the terrifying truths of being a foster parent (or any parent)—you can only do your best. Some of the result is a product of luck, or personality, or some course of outside events that you don't predict (even if later you can say you saw them coming). All of this is included here, well done, with a kind of filmic modesty.
The one bit of high drama comes down to the child pushing his limits when he gets into a criminal plan, and the results of that, which leads to a bit of small time revenge that goes wrong. The boy is now beyond his own limits and is literally stunned. By the last scene, you ought to be heartbroken but also really hopeful. The message finally is that kids are really resilient, and you have to keep opening the right doors for them and let them make good choices.
This film lets us do that.
