Son frère

Beneath its surface of chronic suffering and hospital details, Chereau's best drama etches a humane, sensitive, and richly moving portrait of fraternal love struggling to mitigate human frailty.

Stringent, clinical and almost unbearably moving.

Chéreau's film is an unsentimental, almost uninflected, account of a preparation for death, told with a painful clarity that eventually bleeds into compassion.

Chereau boldly risks alienating his audience by presenting serious illness and all its attendant indignities with an unflinching clarity that's becoming a hallmark of his work.

Todeschini has the most physically demanding role, with a gaunt face and ravaged body that utterly convinces of the brutality of the ailment.

Chéreau keenly understands both his characters and their unwanted world, from the dehumanization that occurs the moment one enters a hospital to the hope and fear that take over when one leaves.

While its two credible leads are certainly up to the challenge, there's a relentless claustrophobia that prevents the film from taking on a fully dimensional life of its own.