Les Géants (Bouli Lanners, 2011)

Two brothers in their early teens are stuck in the countryside at the house of their departed grandfather, without parents either and down to the last of their money. They then hit on the brainwave of renting the house to a local drug producer, with rather predictable consequences.
The Giants is ostensibly a coming-of-age film, but the little fools seem to learn little through their dope-smoking and breaking-and-entering escapades except that some things are just not that good an idea. Then it all ends rather suddenly and vaguely as the director clearly has nothing more to say. The fact that the events are so much outside a realistic context of social services, police and starvation may be intended to mirror the unworldly nature of the mind in early adolescence, but it's incompletely communicated and so fails to convince as a conceit. This is also a pity because the kids do shine with what they're given to work with and the cinematography of the verdant Ardennes landscapes throughout is really quite sumptuous.

5/10