Avoid if you need a laugh

The one constant throughout this film is its bleakness, its darkness, its grimness, its explosive rage. It just never lets up through 90 minutes. The subject matter (abandoned-and-adopted son frantically seeks and finds his birth mother in his adulthood) doesn't lend itself to comedic touches, but there are no contrasts among the actors: they're all dead-serious, all the time. There is no balance in this movie at all, so it is difficult to find its 'centre'.

The young actor Vincent Rottiers, who plays the adult son, spends the entire film with a clenched jaw of granite. Despite his hardships, he is in not a sympathetic figure. You should be rooting for him, but you don't: he's too obnoxious. As an actor, I'm not sure Rottiers's mouth even moves in this movie. He spends most of his time accumulating one rage on top of another. I kept wanting to tell the screen: 'okay, okay, I get it; the guy is well and truly pi**sed off. How many times do you have to remind me?'

All in all, this was a pretty good film dealing with difficult subject matter, but it's certainly not for all tastes. See this when you have a huge store of compassion and patience built up.