Ben X (2007)

Ben X (2007)
Directed by: Nic Balthazar
Written by: Nic Balthazar
Starring: Cesar De Sutter, Greg Timmermans, Marijke Pinoy

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltG3nf5lHXk[/youtube]

Ben X (2007)

(15) Running time: 93 minutes

Director: Nic Balthazar

Writer: Nic Balthazar

Starring: Marijke Pinoy, Greg Timmermans, Cesar De Sutter

Reviewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic

Wow!! This was really good stuff, based on a true story, but highly original. Ben X is obsessed with computer games, and finds it very hard to deal with reality, general day to day living, and he also gets bullied at school. There’s a scene where he walks out the front door to his house, and you can really feel how tense and nervous he is. He’s diagnosed as autistic, but he simply isn’t interested in talking to people. His Mum worries about him, and his younger brother doesn’t think much of him. He spends most of his life playing games online with another girl who he is very comfortable to interact with online, but hasn’t met her in real life. He is basically, a bit strange

Anyway, he’s bullied more and more and you can see him getting pushed closer and closer to the edge. The teachers all feel for him, but seem powerless to help him. Nearly all his reality is mixed with computer graphics to show just how he thinks, and that he feels he’s almost in a computer game all the time. He even fantasises, whilst being bullied, that he’s in a computer game and he has a big sword and cuts up his enemy. To tell you much more would ruin the surprise, but its an intelligent film, with a real emotional punch at the end. Well worth watching

Rating:

[pt-filmtitle]Ben X[/pt-filmtitle]