Like slowly pulling a band-aid off a paper cut for 90 minutes.

I won't tell you the story because if I told you it's a movie about kids from the wrong side of the tracks making a movie, you'd think it was all rainbows and redemption arcs.

Instead, let me say it's a very raw story about disadvantaged kids learning how to make themselves vulnerable in an environment where vulnerability will get you ostracized.

As a father and a sensitive fool, I spent the whole film on the edge of my seat afraid for these children and anxious that I couldn't protect them.

Even worse (or better, depending on how you look at it), all of the children were so incredible in their roles that there was nothing to pull me out of the film and remind me I was only watching a movie. In a world where some films can't even find *one* good child actor, finding three young thespians that deserve award noms is unfathomable.

When the movie finally ended, I was exhausted like I'd been squeezed through an emotional juicer, and any film that can wring so much passion from me deserves the fruits of its rewards.

[Les Pires won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes 2022, which is my favorite category for films at Cannes because it focuses on movies a little left of normal. I started following it when the brilliant Borders won it in 2018.]