Zmajina

Our parents taught us everything we knew until the age when we joined the society. Now, many adult people blame their shortcomings on the influence of their parents.

Such people will adore this film.

Here, the children are absolute victims. Everything bad in their life is directly or indirectly the consequence of their parents' actions. I suppose the viewers of the kind I mentioned will feel a perverse pleasure mixed with pain... A kind of filial masochism, I guess.

The rest of you who are more like me, and don't get a kick out of identifying with victims, will be quite bored, I'm afraid. The film could have lasted 15 minutes and said all it had to say.

Anyway, it gets 6/10 because I admire consistency.

Despite the criminal setting, the human trafficking and what have you, don't be fooled by phrases like "socially relevant". This is pure melodrama. In fact, any soap opera writer would proudly exploit the plot elements of the film.

But what makes it a masterpiece is the absolutely flawless direction. There is not a single scene that is superfluous. Blink and you'll miss an important link in the story.

Behind the apparent simplicity of each scene there is a lot of careful planning. The feelings and actions of the characters are skilfully pointed out for exactly as long as it takes to understand them. The Dardenne brothers are helped by a cast that remains etched in your memory, but I doubt any of the actors would shine this much in a less carefully directed film.

If you're like me and don't want to waste your time on brainless comedies, you might have very well missed this nice little film. Why? Because it sure looks brainless at first. If I had had anything better to do during the first five or ten minutes of "Screwed", I'd have turned off the TV.

But I watched it long enough to realize it was actually very funny. However, it is so unashamedly and deliberately superficial that you can very easily miss its charm if you see only a couple of scenes. Each element (actors, script, direction) is weak by itself. But when they are combined, they somehow manage to conjure that rare magic which we call a good comedy.

Unfortunately, at the two-thirds mark, the film develops an additional plot which is just boring. Your cue: stop watching when DeVito starts ripping off posters from lampposts. From that moment on, the frequency of good jokes decreases dramatically.

Still, the first part of the film is a laugh fest. I recommend it to anyone looking for a good light-hearted (and slightly vulgar) comedy.