Movie Review

Directed by Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, starring: Jeremie Renier (Bruno), Deborah Francois (Sonia), Palme d'Or Award 2005, French with English subtitles, 96 minutes, 2005.

This is a difficult story to watch since the protagonist, Bruno, is such a despicable character. He's a small time hustler who runs a group of child criminals who commit robberies and street crimes. He and his girlfriend Sonia temporarily live in a hovel beneath a bridge and it is to these desperate surroundings that she returns with their child, Jimmie, just born. Bruno seems distracted and uncaring about the child's presence though he sets about stealing a carriage and other necessary accoutrements for the child. On the positive side Bruno and Sonia seem to have a fair amount of cash money due to Bruno's entrepreneurial spirit; he's always fair with his fellow criminals; as a couple they are playful and charming.

However, in a moment when he is supposed to be caring for Jimmie, he walks off with the carriage and arranges to sell the child, completely unbeknownst to Sonia. When they meet up again he explains that now they have money, they can always have another child and they could explain to police that the child was stolen from a park when Bruno left the carriage unattended. Sonia is enraged and collapses. Bruno physically carries her to the hospital.

Bruno immediately recognizes his mistake (!) and sets about to find and reclaim Jimmie. The exchange of money and child is accomplished but the brokers feel that they have actually lost three times the amount that they gave Bruno and set about to extract a great deal more money from him. Sonia refuses to talk to him and kicks him out of the apartment they now occupy. Things go from bad to worse. He gets badly beat up; he has no money at all and is reduced to begging; he involves one of his young accomplices in a disastrous purse snatching; ends up hiding from police in the very cold water of the river. The young boy is arrested but Bruno, in an uncharacteristic self-sacrifice, gives himself up to police.

In a final scene Sonia visits him in jail. As they sit in the jail cafeteria and try to have a stilted conversation he suddenly breaks down in tears and remorse. It is a moment of surprising and spectacular reconciliation. As in many European films there is not the kind of clear resolution that we have become used to and even crave in North America. The ending is open ended. Will the relation with Sonia continue? Will Bruno get out of jail and become a devoted father with a good job? Will he give up his manipulative and self absorbed persona? Is his sudden conversion to be trusted? These are pressing questions for Christians. How much remorse, restitution, punishment or contrition is required for forgiveness? Are there different standards for God and for fellow human beings?

In that sense The Parable of The Prodigal Son is difficult, even shocking, for Christians. Like a European film it has no closure. Does the younger son stay? Does he give up his prodigal ways after a taste of "normal family life"? Are the two brothers ever reconciled? How about the father and the elder brother? The radical nature of the father's prodigal love may shock us, even repels us, because it runs so counter to our own experience and calculations and we may want to argue with the unrealistic nature of the father's forgiveness. However our familiarity with the parable and our efforts at domesticating the gospel may protect us from the shock and dislocation implicit in the story. It holds few surprises for us. This film affords us no such protection. Bruno has sold his inheritance (his son) and gone to the far country. On what grounds could we even consider letting him return?