The Dardennes retain a company of returning players: Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, and Olivier Gourmet. Such loyalty is rare and touching.
Lorna's Silence(Le Silence de Lorna)
✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Belgium, France, Italy · 2008
Rated R · 1h 45m
Director Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Starring Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukaj
Genre Crime, Drama
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Lora and Sokol, two Albanian emigrants living in Belgium, dream of leaving their dreary jobs behind to open a snack bar. To attain money and a permanent residence status, Lora becomes an accomplice to an intricate plan devised by mobster Fabio.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
The New York Times by A.O. Scott
Lorna's Silence is engrossing and powerful, which may be just another way of saying it's a film by the Dardenne brothers. If it falls a bit short of the standards of their best work, that is only because it is not quite a masterpiece.
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
Like earlier Dardenne films, Lorna’s Silence is naturalistic, yet this one, beautifully shot in 35 mm film by Alain Marcoen, achieves a poetry of bereftness.
The film doesn't pack the same cumulative wallop as the brothers' earlier work, but its low-key artistry, immaculate construction and fine performance by relative newcomer Arta Dobroshi should rouse the usual fest acclaim and arthouse interest.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
A gritty, deceptively low-key, no-fuss, no-frills movie of consistent originality and surprise in which suspense arises straight up from the heroine's evolving character.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
A stunning study of one desperate woman's conscience.
Watching Lorna's attempt to balance self-interest and empathy can be heartbreaking. If Lorna's Silence as a whole doesn't rank among the Dardennes's best, it does follow the money to moments and characters that are unforgettable.
The androgynous Dobroshi is in nearly every scene. She has an exceptional screen presence that brings authority to her portrayal of a woman seeking redemption. As for the Dardennes, they prove yet again that nobody does human frailty the way they do.
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