The Worst Ones

The line between fact and fiction always blurs when a camera is pointed at people, but in Lisa Akoka and Romane Gueret’s arresting new feature, it’s more like a game of three-card monte.

The ways in which the roles these kids play impinge on their real lives is interesting... A fascinating movie.

“The Worst Ones” stays true to itself.

Offers a provocative critique of filmmaking practices. It also presents a subtle defense of the onscreen miracles revealed by the young and the raw.

Part of what makes The Worst Ones tick with a pace close to that of a thriller is its self-reflexive relationship to genre and knack for referentiality.

“The Worst Ones,” with dark humor and occasionally confrontational candor... gives us room to query the industry conventions in which it is complicit.

This first feature by directing team Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret is an unusual film-within-a-film, three years in the making, one which gives a moving glimpse of ordinary lives while very subtly touching on greater issues such as class conflict.

The problem director Gabriel faces is he is giving his young actors a hope of something different in their lives. Truth be told, thay are merely pawns in the director’s scheme of things.

Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, former casting directors who worked with children, won the 2022 Cannes Un Certain Regard prize for their clever film-within-a-film which raises numerous ethical questions about exactly what they are doing here.

A fascinating look at expectations and how others see our community and us.