In Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s 2005 film L’Enfant, protagonist Bruno’s (20) girlfriend Sonia (18) has just given birth to their child, Jimmy 1 Both unemployed, they are barely surviving off her welfare cheques and his crimes, until Bruno decides to sell their baby for a large sum of money to a black market adoption without Sonia knowing. What he sees as a quick fix for their financial instability, she interprets as an utterly disturbing and sickening act. Feeling guilty for the shock he has caused her, Bruno eventually buys the baby back but is then turned down by Sonia. Eventually, Bruno ends up in jail after yet another petty crime. The film ends when Sonia comes to visit him in jail, and we see them embracing one last time in a moment of shared despair and anguish.
(more…)- Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, dir., L’Enfant (Sony Pictures Classics, 2005), DVD. ↵