The tearjerker of the year. This Belgian drama throws just about every existing trick at us, including the big one, the atom bomb of heart-rippers, the triple cheeseburger of tissue-pullers: the death of a child. By cancer no less, so that it’s slow and inevitable. One day, the kid’s laughing, humored in a hospital bed by parents who struggle to keep a positive face, and then the next day R.I.P.
Even I was blubbering in the theater and I’m a creep. Ask anybody.
What saves this from being a 100% cloying exercise in sentimental button-pushing is that it’s also a sincere love letter to bluegrass music, which plays frequently over the soundtrack. The structure is non-linear. The story shifts back and forth in time constantly, placing silly and sexy old days next to bleak later days and then back again, like a song with happy verses and a sad chorus (or sad verses with a happy chorus—take your pick). Its lead characters are true blue bohemians. He’s a shaggy banjo player who loves traditional American music; she’s a tattoo artist who falls under the spell of bluegrass once she falls under his spell (they have a nice “meet cute” moment). They frolic like naked nymphs, so in love that the world stops spinning once they’re together and their clothes are on the floor. They eventually have a child, and then you-know-what happens and their relationship comes apart as they live out their own sad song. Every note stings.