Lies and Dysfunction Create Powerful World of ‘Rosie’

In a way that almost sneaks up on you, Patrice Toye’s “Rosie” packs a wallop that’s even stronger because its story seems so familiar, its downward trajectory so inevitable. However, Toye, described in publicity material as the first woman to direct a feature film in Flemish, engages us in the fate of a troubled Antwerp teenager with the freshness of her vision and her ability to make her cast seem to be living rather than acting their roles.

When we meet Aranka Coppens’ 13-year-old Rosie, she is undergoing her intake interview in some sort of juvenile detention center. A girl trying to befriend newcomer Rosie remarks: “Everybody here is either crazy or has killed someone.” What brought Rosie to this place soon begins to unfold in flashbacks. In the meantime, Rosie, a pretty, self-possessed brunet who’s clearly intelligent and assertive, has taken a defiant stance toward her interrogator, convinced that there’s no point in telling the truth because nobody would believe her, which signals Toye’s uncovering of that truth, bit by bit.

Rosie lives in a small apartment with her mother, Irene (Sara de Roo), in a vast, austere Antwerp housing complex. The attractive Irene, a nurse, struggles to make ends meet; her daughter tends to daydream. Rosie seems not to have any close friends and is caught up in a world of paperback romance novels, steamy yet fairy tale-like in their promise of rescue by the proverbial knight in shining armor. As puberty approaches for her, Rosie is in large part living in her imagination.

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So far there’s nothing so unusual about Rosie or her daydreaming, but two factors quickly emerge that are potentially ominous. First of all, Irene insists that Rosie refer to her as her sister rather than her mother to disguise the fact that Irene gave birth to Rosie when she was only 14. It also helps Irene in her own search for a Mr. Right to be regarded as a childless woman. Just as Rosie is captivated by a blond youth, Jimi (Joost Wijnant), who becomes her boyfriend only in her imagination, Irene allows her dead-broke brother Michel (Frank Vercruyssen), a scruffy layabout with a weakness for playing the ponies, to move in. Michel seems amiable enough but quickly starts behaving like a strict father to Rosie, who understandably resents him, believing he has no right to play the paternal disciplinarian.

As fate would have it, as life in Irene’s cramped apartment grows more tense, Irene meets a man she really likes. A widowed chemist of perhaps 40, Bernard (Dirk Roofthooft) is by far the most mature and perceptive individual within this small group of people. He and Irene start falling in love--though, under the circumstances, why they don’t carry on their affair in the privacy of his place rather than hers remains a puzzle--and Bernard makes a real effort to win Rosie’s approval. Life would seem to offer brighter prospects for both mother and daughter than ever before, but that’s not reckoning with Michel, threatened by the arrival of Bernard and determined not to be so easily dislodged from his sister’s home and life.

Of course, a lot is going on beneath an increasingly volatile surface, but, at 13, Rosie is the first to be affected by the gathering storm and the last to comprehend its root causes. That Irene comes so close to making everything work for her and for her daughter, that makes the playing out of their predicament all the more wrenching.

“Rosie” derives much of its tension, its sense of potential tragedy, from Toye’s making it possible to identify with the mother as well as the daughter. Irene is a lovely, intelligent woman, striving mightily to overcome a dark past to provide a better, happier life for her daughter. Her biggest mistake is to think she can help her destructive brother without endangering her and her daughter’s chances for happiness. Almost everyone who has survived adolescence can identify with Rosie, whose discovery of the capacity of adults for dishonesty and deception takes on a far more extreme and shattering form than it does for most of us.

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The look and feel of “Rosie,” with its overpowering sense of emotional authenticity, suggests that Toye works intuitively. She lets us discover her story’s truths and meanings as it unfolds. Most importantly, Toye, in only her first movie, reveals herself to be a filmmaker with a vision that makes you feel you have missed nothing intended. In short, “Rosie” is a notably fully realized film beyond its telling dialogue and its faultless performances, especially that of young Aranka Coppens, who has the primary responsibility in carrying the film.

There’s never a sense of Toye imposing a style or shape upon the film; rather, every aspect of “Rosie” has emerged from its people and their interactions. What Toye has done so effectively is to drain most every scene of all but its essential people, which heightens their aura of isolation and loneliness--never, for example, do we see anyone except the principals in that apartment complex. Such an approach allows Toye to build assuredly to her biggest truth, the abiding need for individuals to be loved, to feel part of a family, a need so deep that if it is not answered in reality it surely shall in fantasy--regardless of the consequences.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: some language, adult themes and extremely tense emotional situations.

‘Rosie’

Aranka Coppens: Rosie

Sara de Roo: Irene

Frank Vercruyssen: Michel

Joost Wijnant: Jimi

Dirk Roofthooft: Bernard

A New Yorker Films release of a co-production of Prime Time, the Flemish Film Fund, VRT, Nationale Loterij, and Canal Plus. Writer-director Patrice Toye. Producer Antonino Lombardo. Cinematographer Richard Van Oosterhout. Editor Ludo Troch. Music John Parish. Costumes An D’Huys. Art director Johan Van Essche. In Flemish with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

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