Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Brother’ on Netflix, a Heavy French Melodrama About Violent Young Men

The debut of French Netflix movie Brother — a.k.a. Mon Frere — brings with it some compelling metatext: it’s a drama about the nature and aftermath of violence, starring Parisian rapper MHD (Mohamed Sylla), who was charged with voluntary manslaughter earlier this year after a 2018 incident. It may be a case of coincidental irony, but regardless, real life gives the fictional story an additional layer of complication.

BROTHER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Teddy (MHD) is on a bus, one eye bloodshot, both deeply worried under a furrowed brow. He’s let off at a youth custody center, where he’s one of a dozen teenage boys who are too young for adult trial or incarceration. Teddy doesn’t say much. He broods and prefers to keep to himself, which he finds is all but impossible in close quarters with aggressive personalities. Enzo (Darren Muselet) appears to be the local bully, a serial antagonizer who throws around racial slurs like snowballs packed with ice. He targets Teddy, raising his ire. Meanwhile, Teddy trusts Mo (Najeto Injai), perhaps because he’s also black; but Mo is less interested in retaliation than being the brutal alpha dog, thus tangling Teddy in the middle of a nasty conflict.

Teddy’s 12-year-old brother Andy (Youssouf Gueye) stays with their grandmother (Lisette Malidor), who doesn’t answer the phone when their mother calls. Teddy’s psychiatrist, Claude (Aissa Maiga), encourages him to try “psycho-boxing,” in which they don boxing gloves and spar lightly, apparently to teach the young man some self-control. Predictably, such sessions teeter towards intensity; cue flashbacks to Teddy and Andy’s father cruelly beating them and their mother. We soon learn what happened — and then what really happened.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Brother is a significantly less-nuanced riff on similar themes raised by indie gem Short Term 12.

Performance Worth Watching: MHD is a strong dramatic anchor, saying more with sullen, soulful eyes than with dialogue.

Memorable Dialogue: “No one impresses me here,” Teddy says of his fellow inmates. “I like to impress,” Mo retorts.

Sex and Skin: None

Our Take: For an hour, Brother is engrossing, thoughtful, well-acted and sincerely plaintive. It’s not subtle, but it’s effective drama. It introduces characters, allows us to make assumptions about them, then upends those assumptions; director/co-writer Julien Abraham isn’t interested in boilerplate archetypes, and isn’t afraid to break from a mostly understated, utilitarian visual style for the occasional poetic moment.

Curious then, why does the third act stumble so significantly? The plot takes over and consumes all else, leaving character and logic in the dust, questing for a dissatisfactory conclusion. Stories need not feel complete to be meaningful — for the best movie characters, one senses that life goes on for them after the credits roll. But this one feels significantly over — or underdeveloped — the counselor characters, especially a significant one like Claude, aren’t used to full effect. And what does the grandmother think of all this? It’s her son that’s out of the picture now, and why won’t she let her traumatized grandsons talk to their mother? Don’t expect any good answers.

Our Call: STREAM IT. All that said, Brother is too good for two acts to dismiss outright. Its heart is in the right place.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Brother on Netflix