UK Premiere

Short Synopsis

Karitas is a single mother of four who desperately tries to make ends meet. Fighting a losing battle with her ex-husband for custody over her three daughters, she's oblivious to what's going on with her twelve year old son Gudmunder, a victim of brutal bullying at school and whose life is on the fast track to destruction.

Review

With Children, director Ragnar Bragason comes across as an Icelandic Ken Loach, such is his apparent affection for the misfits of modern society. This film, the first of a pair on the parent/child theme, is a gritty drama revolving around three inter-related characters.

First we meet Gardar, a gangland enforcer who, despite outbursts of violence, possesses a sense of moral justice at odds with his choice of employment. Several years ago Gardar fathered a son with Karitas, a young nurse who is heavily in debt and reliant on alcoholic binges to blot out her problems. Karitas lives in the same building as Marino, a middle-aged schizophrenic who is completely dependent on his mother and who becomes insanely jealous when it emerges that she has a secret life. When Gardar returns to see his son, he becomes a catalyst for a series of events which soon spiral out of control.

Gardar, Karitas and Marino are the infants in this film. Marino has the mental capacity of a child, Karitas helplessly allows her children to run her household, and Gardar behaves like a school bully, believing he can solve any problem through either bribery or intimidation.

Children is not always an easy watch but its depth of characterisaton and compelling story make it hard to turn away (a very rewarding one).

Alan Diment