Tori and Lokita

Tori and Lokita is an almost unbearably tense, lo-fi thriller that carries with it a stern, solemn moral weight. Long into a storied career, the Dardennes are making work as relevant and probing as ever.

You feel the hand of the filmmakers on the controls and sense those hands shaking with rage.

Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne specialize in social realism, unwaveringly committed to their characters and craft, and Tori and Lokita is no exception.

Brings to light the personal stories of people relegated to the shadows of mainstream society—and the bureaucratic decisions, made with an inhuman indifference, that result in their misery.

Whenever [Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne] turn their camera to the black African population, it's very important because what they are saying is "these are French folk, and we're including them in our narrative canon."

Quite devastating but so well made.

Every action in this Cannes award-winner is motivated if not wholly rational. Every consequence grimly believable and shorn of artifice and melodrama.

It is rather drab and dull, without many compelling moments. Earnestness and conscientiousness are no substitute for artistic flair.

The Dardenne brothers have succeeded, with Tori and Lokita, in putting human faces on those who are usually nameless and anonymous.

“Tori and Lokita” may sound like a serious-minded message movie, but it plays like a thriller.