This film (which was Belgium's submission to the oscars last year) has received a very limited release here over the past couple of months so having missed the last showing at an art cinema I found it online. The story is that an autistic boy is being bullied by people at school, his only sense of self-esteem stemming from his passion for online gaming and his relationship with a girl who he plays with. The narrative cuts between us following the escalation of the bullying intercut with his fantasies, as well as interviews from parents, classmates, etc. in a future time period talking about something that happened which according to his mother took a death for people to take notice.
The lead role is an extremely complicated one and very difficult for a young actor to pull off and I think Greg Timmermans does a fine job, it's not an amazing knock-out-of-the-park performance but certainly a good effort. Marijke Pinoy as his mother is probably the pick of the cast, doing her best work in the interweaved retrospective interviews and Laura Verlinden does a nice job as the online object of his desire.
There are a few areas of this film that don't work as well as they could or should, the rambling voiceover may attempt to show his state of mind but it was distracting and sometimes rather moot. The bullying scenes are rather poorly done, they're 2-Dimensional and very over the top and do not engage the audience in the attempt to get you on the boy's side because they're so staged. This film, by director Nic Balthazar is also clearly made by someone from (or influenced by) a music video background and the editing is not consistent and throws clumps of images continually at the viewer, which is more unsuccessful than not.
All of that said though, this is a very interesting film. Showing how people gain confidence or take solace in their online personas is a potential goldmine which they don't fully explore but it's contemporary and relevant. They continually cut between him in his current situation and show you his mind viewing it in terms of the role-playing game he plays online - this works far better than the voiceover in showing you (rather than telling you) what's happening inside him. Also, while the bullying scenes aren't good the characterisation of everyone he comes into contact with is - certain people do nothing, others help passively and others actively stand up for him. The end is rather unpredictable but also very questionable in terms of the message they're sending out. A lot of it works, some of it doesn't, it's a weird film which is not always successful but inherently interesting. I couldn't broadly recommend it but if the subject matter and topics appeal it's worth checking out.