'Gourmet gives an invigoratingly understated performance' Sheila Johnston - SCREEN INTERNATIONAL 'Olivier Gourmet...tremendous' 'another acutely focused tour de force' 'Masterfully unobtrusive camera style...simply faultless' Tim Robey - DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A tremendous, controlled study...hand-held close-up, breathtakingly claustrophobic... generated a tension entirely built on pain and loss' Fiona Morrow - THE INDEPENDENT 'A moving, perceptive study of forgiveness and redemption played to perfection by Olivier Gourmet' 'Deeply moving' Geoff Andrew - TIME OUT 'THE SON is a more subtle affair, proving that less is really more as it leaves much to the imagination.' FILMFOUR.COM 'The standout film of this festival, or indeed any other at which it has been screened..' 'Confirmation, it if were needed after ROSETTA (1999) of Jean-Pierre and Luc's considerable, Bressonian-inspired talents and their eminence amongst contemporary world cinema directors.' Jason Wood - KAMERA.CO.UK (REGUS LONDON FILM FESTIVAL) 'The wonderful Dardenne Brothers return with another wonderfully observed, largely laconic study...' 'At once innovative, absolutely lucid and profoundly humane: film-making of the highest order' TIME OUT (Critics’ choice 2003) 'As with ROSETTA, the Dardennes have produced a film that has both the tension of a thriller and the awkward compassion of the best social realism' Patrick Peters - EMPIRE ...Urgent, compassionate, compelling' David Cox - TOTAL FILM 'Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne are a modern-day miracle.' 'Masterful and profoundly fraternal' Richard Kelly - SIGHT & SOUND 'Their movies...are made with such craftsmanship and intelligence that they never seem merely didactic' 'A focused, intense tale...takes the Dardennes’s minimalist approach to a new extreme' Geoffrey Macnab - THE GUARDIAN 'A strikingly powerful yet simple film' 'Gourmet is an absolute treasure...With the hardships of life seemingly etched in his face, his self-contained performance is both a physically and emotionally resonant one' James Mottram - FILM REVIEW 'In the space of just three films, the former documentarists have taken their place among the finest, most important film-makers around today.' 'Gourmet...rightly won the Cannes Best Actor prize...Marinne is terrific, too, debuting in what for the most part is a two-hander' 'Never manipulative or sensationalist, the film opts for honesty, if its innovative in style, its also absolutely lucid, humane and profoundly moving. Film-making of the highest order' Geoff Andrew - TIME OUT 'Raw, rigorous yet transcendent social realism' '...An urgent, compassionate and compelling work' '...An artfully artless style...the abrupt climatic grace note is hard-earned and resonates far beyond the film's minimalist confines' David Cox - UNCUT 'Quite simply film-making of the highest order' James Christopher - THE TIMES 'Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne follow up their masterful ROSETTA with this equally powerful film' 'Olivier Gourmet...remarkable' 'Swift and forceful...the result is a rigorous, rewarding piece of spiritual suspense' David Cox - i-D MAGAZINE '...Has the confidence and moral seriousness of great drama' 'Extraordinarily tense' 'A terrific film, and a worthy successor to ROSETTA' Anthony Quinn - THE INDEPENDENT 'A subtle emotionally affecting performance' 'Formally the film is startlingly fresh' Fiona Morrow - THE INDEPENDENT 'A brooding, tightly focused study of the endless grief that follows the loss of a loved one' '...The picture keeps us constantly on edge...A tough, uncompromising work' Allan Hunter - DAILY EXPRESS 'No compromises for the Dardenne brothers; after the critical success with ROSETTA comes an equally powerful study of anger and isolation' 'The Dardennes elicit performance's that slowly peel away a character's defences...shooting in a naturalistic style that proves shockingly revealing' Nina Caplan - METRO Film of the week / The five best films - No 1 'Powerful, on-the-nail minimalism' 'Gourmet won best actor in Cannes 2002 for his touching, ruined performance' Roger Clarke - THE INDEPENDENT Film - Pick of the week - No 2 'Tightly focused...spare and fascinating' 'An understated drama that leaves the viewer in a state of almost perpetual suspense' Steve Rose - THE GUARDIAN GUIDE 'The formula 'less is more' comes into its own with THE SON' '...Thanks to the accumulation of detail, we get far more than meets the eye' 'Remarkably focused' '...A very subtle, lucid light cast on troubled lives' Jonathan Romney - THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY '...THE SON gets better and better, reaching almost unbearable levels of tension and honesty' 'A brilliantly acted claustrophobic piece of work that never hammers home its allegorical concerns too noisily.' Catherine Shoard - THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'The Dardenne brothers command our attention by a brilliant use of cinema...we're drawn into an astonishing intimacy with this laconic, injured man' 'Gourmet's commanding performance rightly won the best actor prize at Cannes' Philip French - THE OBSERVER 'An intense psychodrama of loss' 'An original and fascinating study of someone Gourmet describes as 'a human being in a situation of extreme pain" 'Each key moment of THE SON offers (such) tantalising alternatives' Nick James - SIGHT & SOUND