Sonia has just had a baby and is out searching for Bruno, a penniless petty thief that spends money as soon as he gets it and even sublets her apartment while she's in the hospital giving birth so he can buy cigarettes and a leather jacket. So, mere days after giving birth, Sonia, Bruno and their baby Jimmy are forced to sleep in homeless shelters and they live off her welfare checks.
What's unclear about the film's title is whether it refers to Jimmy or his sad, pathetic father, who has 14-year-olds do much of his dirty work stealing items that he then fences to another crook, pocketing profit along the way. It obviously refers to both, of course.
When he falls into debt with his nasty little accomplices, Bruno's mind shoots back to when his buyer tells him that people will pay good money to "adopt" a baby. Taking Jimmy for a stroll, Bruno can't help himself and sells the baby for 5,000 Euros.
It comes as little surprise. From the get-go, Bruno doesn't want to hold Jimmy, nor does he appear to even give the child a passing glance at their first meeting. Perhaps Bruno sees the child as a burden. More likely the self-absorbed Bruno is too busy thinking about himself, his needs and the jobs that will fund them.
In their bleak, rarely sun-drenched film -- which lags at times; it gets tiresome at times to keep watching Bruno make the predictibly wrong choice -- the Dardenne's make little effort to paint Bruno as an adult.
In fact, the reverse is true. While waiting for the baby sale to go down, he passes the time by stomping in mud and seeing how high he can kick up a shoe print on a white wall. Another time, bored, he sits along a river and whacks the water with a stick for longer than would seem to amuse anyone older 8 years old.
And after selling Jimmy, Bruno appears to have no remorse and tells Sonia - to paraphrase -- "I sold him. Look at all the money I got. Hey, we'll have another one anyway."
But Sonia faints and wakes up angry, as you'd expect. But Bruno doesn't get it. He even asks her, "What did I do?"
So, when thing get even worse for Bruno we can't help but cheer at his troubles, but perhaps that's the parent in us coming out; the part of our brain that says Jimmy is better off without a dad like this.
The question for Sonia is whether or not she'll get her baby back. As ever, the questions for Bruno are, "do you have any spare change?" and "Sonia, I'm sorry, won't you take me back?"
The question for us is whether or not Bruno will ever be able to make the right choice?
"L'Enfant" opens Friday, April 28 at Landmark's Downer Theatre.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
