Custody (2017)

I adore the director Xavier. This film is even better than the short film. The acting, the direction, the cast everything is spectacular! You will be hooked to your seat till the end! Must watch! Highly Recommended! Ignore the haters!

Fmovies: Hard to watch but this movie was a real eye opener , I love the movie, even at the beginning of the movie the dialogue was full on , started from there and continued right to the end ..constant fear for the whole family ... Must see movie.... that little boy did an amazing job !!! This is the real deal of domestic violence:(

Movies are best consumed without expectations but sometimes a warning is needed. The hyper-realistic French film Custody (2018) is less about child custody than it is a vehicle for depicting the most pulse-racing domestic terrorism you are likely to see in a long while. It is visceral and raw, as is the fact that one French woman is killed every three days by a partner. This film suggests why.

The opening scenes are clinically documentary in style. A magistrate takes submissions from lawyers for estranged couple Antoine (Denis Ménochet) and Miriam (Léa Drucker) over custody of their 12-year old son Julien (Thomas Gioria). It is impossible for us to gauge the merits of either litigant and easy to empathise with both. On the available evidence, the magistrate takes a routine middle path and awards custody, an outcome that will imperil mother and child.

If it were possible to plot the tension curve of this film, it would start just off the floor and work its way through the roof in its final seconds. Initially Antoine behaves like an aggrieved husband who loves his son. Step by step, we see him using custody rights to manipulate Julien into revealing information about his mother. The legally necessary contact between the slightly built Miriam and the towering hulk Antoine become increasingly ominous. His overbearing silence in key scenes drips with menace as she knows his capacity for violence and the law is no help.

This film stands out for the grounded way it depicts the escalation of threat. It keeps actual physical domestic violence out of the picture, and instead shows the psychological pressures of trying to separate from a violent man. The acting performances are extraordinary. Ménochet only has to raise an eyebrow and tensions rise, while Drucker is a portrait of frozen fear. The standout performance comes from young Gioria whose astonishing authenticity belies his tender years. The cinematography powers the narrative and shapes the claustrophobic atmosphere in which a mother and child are being given progressively less space to breathe. Many scenes are prolonged in length to create real-time voids into which is poured unimaginable suspense.

Be warned: this is not entertainment. It is more like stepping into the shoes of a defenceless mother and child who must fend for themselves against a raging beast. The indescribably frightening final scenes re-define the concept of 'toxic masculinity' and make you wonder about today's role models of manhood. Director: Xavier Legrand Stars: Denis Ménochet, Léa Drucker, Thomas Gioria

Custody fmovies. I find it hard to categorize and settle my thoughts on this film. It appears as a serious gritty kitchen-sink style drama, but Legrand keeps his story, ideas and characters very simple, and it eventually comes across as a slightly lame domestic version of an exploitation film. Its a story that could be told far more efficiently as a 30 minute short, without losing any meaning or impact (unless your thing is build-up for the sake of an ending, which the film delivers a lot of).

It was mildly interesting to watch, although not particularly rewarding or stimulating. It just sort of plods along (with great acting mind). It unravels slightly and becomes slightly annoying. Then the last seven minutes or so become tense and gripping, then its all over and the credits roll. I'm just not sure what there really is to take from it - any specific angle (forewarning patterns of a person's intent/trajectory? Horror/suspense film? Character study? Psychology of co-dependency?) could have been delivered MUCH more substantially, effectively and in a way that leaves a much deeper imprint. It all feels a bit too short and tepid to really be worthy of a feature.

DOMESTIC TERRORISM, BUT YOU CAN'T LOOK AWAY.

You start with a custody battle and both sides have a different view on how things happened. What really went on, you'll never know but throughout the movie you start to unravel the reasons behind everything. And some questions do get answered. Others don't. But in the end, it ENDS!

This film has no score throughout and that was a perfect choice, since it relies on sound and dialogue a lot. Camerawork is stunning, especially a scene where the father chases the son out of the car into a little park in between apartment buildings.

The best acting comes from Denis Ménochet who plays the father (Antoine) and the young actor Thomas Gioria who plays the son (Julien), especially their interactions in the car are pure GOLD. The tension throughout this film is nerve wracking and you can tell anyone can snap at anytime, you're just waiting for it to happen and you're worried for anyone that's standing too close to be affected by the impact.

Director Xavier Legrand won the Silver Lion at Venice Film Festival in 2017 for directing this film.

I attended a matinee session and everyone was quiet throughout the entire film, until one particular scene. That's when I gasped as well and I noticed fellow moviegoers with their hand on their mouth in shock.

"Jusqu'à la garde" (Custody) is so intense it's too much to bear in the best possible way.

The French writer/director Xavier Legrand was nominated for the Oscar for Best Live Action Short for 2014 with his film "Just Before Losing Everything". This film was about a mother and her children who are fleeing a violent and abusive husbandÂ…and it sure packed an emotional wallop. Amazingly, Legrand is back with the same familyÂ… and a full-length follow up to the previous filmÂ…and it's even better! A reason to watch this is because the most intense, heart- wrenching and well directed 15 minutes make up the final portion of the filmÂ…and I could hear folks crying, gasping and calling out as well!!

The film begins with a custody hearing. The judge is listening to the evidence and it's difficult to really know what's going on with the family. Is the father an abusive monster who doesn't deserve to have custody of his 11 year-old son? Or, is the child right when he says he never wishes to have contact with the man againÂ…and he's afraid of the man? Regardless, the judge decides to award joint custody to the father and mother. Inexplicably, the visits with the possibly violent father are unsupervisedÂ…and the audience has no idea what's going to happen next. Needless to sayÂ…really bad things are going to happen and soon!

The first half of this movie is goodÂ…but not amazing. It's all important as set up for the final portion and I cannot say enough about how well all this comes together at the end. Not a film for the faint of heart, but a blood-pumping, Adrenalin-inducing masterful film that could easily be a strong candidate for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. If it's not at least nominated, I'd be very surprised.