Felix Van Groeningen’s Ghent-set melodrama centres on a couple – tattoo-parlour owner Elise (Veerle Baetens) and banjo player Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) – torn apart when their daughter contracts cancer.
Co-written by Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels, based on their own play, it will have you toe-tapping one minute and tear-wiping the next.
Van Groeningen blends the happiness and tragedy of life like a master alchemist, using music as an emotional life-raft, which is just as well: the bleak final third will test the hardiest of souls.
