L'enfant d'en haut

Switzerland's entry for Best Foreign Language film (it will or won't be nominated come Thursday morning although it has already been announced as one of the Top 9 contenders by that organization) is about young Simon and his older sister who live in a housing complex at the base of a mountain housing a luxury ski resort/chalet.

Simon (Kacey Mottet Klein) steals from the rich customers who have so much they are none the wiser and his sister Louise (Lea Seydoux) wanders aimlessly from man to man looking for a possible guy to take them both into his life.

It is an honest, unflinching composite of poverty and survival and Mottet Klein does an outstanding job in his role as someone who takes chances because he has nothing (or everything) to lose. Seydoux again impresses (this time in an un-likable role) as her Louise is one who needs to grow-up and learn a thing or two; but without knowing much of where these two came from we cannot fault either of them too much. Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, The House of Mirth) shows up in a few scenes as an English tourist Simon wishes to impress but this story belongs to brother and sister.

We are all so quick to judge but oftentimes we know nothing of what we are talking about. Sister asks us to take a glimpse of another life and imagine ...