The Child­hood of a Leader

The title of a movie often sits out on its own. When a sto­ry starts, it drifts to the back of the mind. Not this one, though. This one impos­es a force­ful twist on every frame. Actor Brady Corbet’s direc­to­r­i­al debut has been adapt­ed from Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1939 short sto­ry of the same name. It is about a 10-year-old boy grow­ing up in a love­less, author­i­tar­i­an house­hold. The boy’s future as a fas­cist leader is not the focus of the film. Were it not for the title’s omi­nous fore­shad­ow­ing, this would be about the child­hood of an emo­tion­al­ly dam­aged adult. It would demand a com­plex form of sympathy.

As things stand, sym­pa­thy becomes thought­ful con­fu­sion. Ques­tions hov­er like vul­tures. Where on a time­line start­ing with inno­cence and end­ing with evil-doing does a per­son lose the right to com­pas­sion? We’re in France in 1918. The child is angel­ic-look­ing, girl­ish-bob-sport­ing Prescott (Tom Sweet) who is already throw­ing rocks at adults. The Father (Liam Cun­ning­ham) is a high-rank­ing US diplo­mat who is too pre­oc­cu­pied with his own work to spare a thought for his family’s needs. The Moth­er (Bérénice Bejo) is cold, impe­ri­ous and bro­ken. She nev­er want­ed a child. She nev­er even want­ed to be a wife.

All the char­ac­ters bar Prescott deliv­er their lines with creepy stiff­ness. It could be mis­tak­en for bad act­ing, were it not so con­sis­tent. The fam­i­ly and their ser­vants occu­py a high-ceilinged man­sion that pro­duc­tion design­er, Jean-Vin­cent Puzos, has turned into an ele­gant­ly wast­ed cav­ern. A near-emp­ty bed­room has a wall paint­ed in bur­nished gold. Else­where, the décor reflects sta­tus, but per­son­al effects scarce­ly exist. The only thing that enlivens this lav­ish prison is the slam­ming of doors and shout­ing. There is no laugh­ter, no hap­pi­ness, no com­pas­sion – only a hau­teur as deeply set as rig­or mortis.

In the absence of warmer emo­tions, each scene becomes a bat­tle of wills. Lit­tle Tom Sweet is fab­u­lous as a brood­ing fire­crack­er in minia­ture form. Unlike the grin­ning and malev­o­lent young sub­ject of Lynne Ramsay’s We Need to Talk About Kevin, he is eas­i­ly hurt, and each emo­tion­al or lit­er­al blow land­ed by his par­ents caus­es obvi­ous pain. It is how he imme­di­ate­ly trans­lates that pain to stub­born vengeance that enables you to imag­ine what kind of an adult he will become. The set-up is fas­ci­nat­ing and the ten­sion is increas­ing­ly grotesque. Yet there are many plod­ding stretch­es which Cor­bet doesn’t suc­ceed in con­ceal­ing by insert­ing wild cam­era move­ments com­bined with Scott Walker’s bleak, jud­der­ing orches­tral score. This music feels like pos­sessed black stal­lions gal­lop­ing to hell. It blud­geons you with loud, brash, hys­ter­i­cal horror.

Sta­cy Mar­tin, star of Lars Von Trier’s Nympho­ma­ni­ac, pops up to height­en the domes­tic ten­sion and have her body catal­yse a bizarre sex­u­al moment. Robert Pat­tin­son has two roles that com­prise fif­teen min­utes of screen-time com­bined. His pres­ence endors­es rather than enables this win­ning­ly strange vision. Cor­bet doesn’t know what to do with the mon­ster he has built and the result is an under­whelm­ing end­ing, but the exis­ten­tial intrigue that came before still casts a long and dark shadow.