Author's judgement: 
It has often happened to see French films that have not always met with approval in our area. There are different cultures, film schools and different experiences involved. Last but not least, there is always healthy jealousy, sometimes antagonism, about who can best master the camera. A bit like with cooking: everyone claims the best dish for themselves. The writer has often found himself uncomfortable with a certain way of making cinema across the Alps, especially in the comedy genre.
This time, instead, chapeau!!! A great film, important, tough, with enormous narrative capacity, decidedly over the top even compared to so much Italian, indulgent and feel-good cinema. Let's talk about Foster care – a story of violence, signed by the young director Xavier Legrand who won a well-deserved Silver Lion in Venice for his debut with this work. The genre of film is "social" and refers to that basic, fundamental world, made up of the more or less consolidated family where deeds and misdeeds of all kinds often take place.
The story is as ordinary as it is widespread physical and emotional violence: two spouses separate and each of them claims custody of the children, an 11-year-old boy (of very rare expressiveness) and his no less talented teenage sister. The father, initially moved by apparent affection and concern, tries and asks to spend as much time as possible with the children who, on the other hand, they don't want at all (they call him "the one"). The story climbs up an uphill path full of strong tensions with the ex-wife who tries in every way to keep the boys out of the emotional clash with her ex-husband. The man lives with growing aversion to both the woman and the boys who are definitely on the mother's side. The story ends tragically, but not unexpectedly.
It is the representation of what dramatically happens, too often, within the domestic walls, on the rubble of families devastated by oppressive, violent, possessive male figures beyond all limits who easily degenerate into bloodshed. It is the old master father, as well as a caring false husband, who behind the fiction of affection towards his children or the woman he thinks he loves, masks his wild and bestial nature. It is not easy to convey with images how much pain, how much suffering, the victims of so many abuses can feel and the director, in this case, succeeded perfectly. The gaze of someone who experiences first-hand the aggression, first subtle and subtle, then direct and brutal, requires a strong sensitivity on the part of those holding the camera and equal strength on the part of those who act. Well done, all the protagonists are definitely good, starting with the young Thomas Gioria in the guise of the youngest son: some of the close-ups of him tell the whole film! It has rightly been defined as a cinematographic "manifesto" against feminicide but it is even more: it is a strong denunciation of a culture of family violence that may not reach its violent climax, but remains hidden, subtle and silent but equally devastating .
A film on shared custody awarded in Venice…..a film to be boycotted, contested and disgusted.
…the plot……
Shared custody: …..A judge decides to entrust the children to both parents.
The father's attempt to have a relationship with his son turns into dangerous psychological and physical violence to take revenge against his ex-wife who has only one great fault, not loving him anymore for the violence suffered in the past.
……..the film is the film……it happens today in a southern region:
He returns home and no longer finds his wife who has run away with her mother's partner (her mother) and her children.
He is beaten and stabbed, he reports to the carabinieri (hospital certificate)…….wife and children in another country, the father is unable to have his children……This is not a film, it is reality that has not been awarded in Venice………Every day, every day, tens and tens and tens of thousands of men raped by women, they write on the internet.