A difficult film to sit through due to the subject matter it handles pedophilia, incest, assault, and murder, the Treatment is as hard-hitting as it can get. It's best visualized as four episodes with intertwining characters and storylines -
a) Inspector Cafmeyer's personal tragedy where his brother supposedly gets abducted by a next-door-pedophile, the fact that he's not been found, and how it haunts him 25 years later.
b) The horrific Simons family incident where someone tortures them for days, abducts the couple's young boy and leaves him bitten & murdered in a park.
c) A repeat of the earlier mentioned event for another family in the neighborhood.
d) The big reveal & the finale.
Geert Van Rampelberg is stupendous as the emotionally broken but smart investigator Cafmeyer, who has to hold himself together as cases echoing his brother's disappearance start to pile up. The unraveling of clues is where The Treatment solidly delivers, some having connections to past events and some requiring a forensic elucidation. While I expected this film to go the typical serial-killer route, it both held my attention and made me fleetingly look away as the case(s) started delving deeper into an underground pedophile ring.
The Treatment is the kind of film where bodily fluids (of its helpless victims) can be sensed from afar. The graphic nature of the film lies rooted in its emotional weights, not the blood-letting. The tension is sustained well, and in fact, lingers in your mind long after the credits start to roll.
