“MARRIAGE FOR THE ‘BUCKS’ “
Starring: Arta Dobroshi, Jeremie Renier, Fabrizio Rongione, Alban Ukaj, Morgan Marinne, and Anton Yakovlev
Directed by: Luc Dardenne, Jean-Pierre Dardenne
MPAA Rating: R for brief sexuality/nudity, and language.
Genre: Art/Foreign and Drama
In French/Albanian with English Subtitles
By John Delia
It’s a bit drawn out, wicked and artsy, but I just couldn’t be sympathetic enough to like Lorna’s Silence. The film would be great for an audience that likes a riveting tale of a challenging life, except this one just doesn’t make the grade.
The film centers on Lorna (Dobroshi), a young Albanian woman who is living in Belgium. Sokol (Ukaj), her lover comes up with a plan to get money for their dream of opening a small fast food joint. The scheme goes something like this; Lorna has to marry a Belgian man to get citizenship in that country so she can then marry a Russian mafia boss who wants Belgian identity papers. In order to pull it off, Sokol’s mobster friend Fabio (Rongione) sets up the mark, Claudy (Renier) who is a hardened drug addict that is certain to overdose his life away giving Lorna her freedom to marry the Russian. When Lorna starts having a change of heart, things start spiraling out of control.
The directors twist their characters without exuding the empathy necessary to accept the reasons for their actions. I wanted to believe Lorna would do such a diabolical act, but not for the goal of a small snack shop. Then I shifted my thoughts of her reasoning to a possible undying love for her boyfriend Sokol, but there wasn’t enough of his character fleshed out to really get a grip on their romantic affair. It is hard to second-guess the Dardenne brothers for what they envisioned with Lorna’s Silence, but whatever it was, it did not come off the screen for my enjoyment.
I did like the acting of a couple of characters, however and the most prominent one is Claudy. I felt compassion for the drug addict who accepted Lorna for what she was, without knowing the tragedy that lied ahead.
Lorna’s Silence contains scenes of brief sexuality, nudity, drug use and harsh language, but it doesn’t help the tedious and somewhat predictable storyline.
FINAL ANALYSIS: Interesting isn’t enough to carry this artsy film. (2 of 5 Palm Trees)