Tori and Lokita (2022) User Reviews

Surrounded by Rocks & Hard Places...

[Xstal · 8/10 · 15 February 2023]

In a land where you had dreamed of being free, of independence with your own autonomy, you find your shackled and confined, forced to break rules, committing crimes, with a state that will not give you liberty. Along with Tori you make do the best you can, adopted brother with whom you had made a plan, but the dealer has you trapped, the smugglers make you feel kidnapped, your money taken, you feel forsaken, abused, attacked.

Following the lives of two juvenile African immigrants who find themselves trapped in a cycle of despair and abuse. Joely Mbundu is outstanding as Lokita, as she desperately tries to make enough money to send home while taking care of Tori, who has agreed to act as her brother while she seeks permanent residency in Belgium.

A gripping and tense watch with two likable leads

[gricey_sandgrounder · 7/10 · 14 December 2022]

Stories about immigrants is becoming more and more common in the cinema. It's sadly an ever growing topic. But a lot of these films with this premise come from either one story or a series of stories from one particular country.

This particular tale has great authenticity both in its plot and homemade style with its hand-held camerawork.

There are some tough sequences and all of that along with sound character development makes for a tense and dramatic second half. It was almost like watching a documentary.

A lot of it is thanks to the two strong performances of Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils. Their connection and on-screen friendship felt very believable and natural.

There's a lot they are having to deal and it paints a very interesting picture on how immigrants in this part of the world are treated.

I could be picky and say that the ending does leave a few loose ends and some of the choices felt rushed. But I didn't think it was a major drawback as it still some tense sequences that had me totally gripped.

I was surprised that it's just less than 90 minutes long given the subject matter. But I think what we got gave us enough of a glimpse into this dark and tough world.

Our investment is thanks to the two leads who give off strong natural sympathy and put us on their side early on.

The content is tough at times and the documentary approach gave it the rawness to make it work.

Astonishingly good acting of rookies

[Irena_Spa · 7/10 · 29 March 2023]

Considering there is debut for both in main cast, Joely Mbundu and Pablo Schils, no doubt they gave top of performances. The chemistry between is so touchable and we can feel their natural bond through that acting. It is the picture how usually goes that process of adaptation of refugees in foreign territory, which does not favor them with good intentions. I didn't expect to see such a good movie, by that fact that I didn't have in my schedule at all to see it during one movie festival, but suddenly changed my mind and entered that cinema hall where it started to play. I wasn't wrong. If you decide to see it, you will follow a strong emotionally and at the end sad story, after watching it, it will stay in your memory.

Dardennne brothers are really the French belgian Ken Loach

[searchanddestroy-1 · 27 May 2023]

This movie is really worth watching if you like the Dardenne brothers work. I am pleased to see that after all those years they are still efficient, motivated, that they have lost nothing of their talent, their wish to denounce social injustice and human behavior in general. They are genuinely the greatest specialists of this kind of social issues, the equivalent of Ken Loach if you prefer. This story is so compelling, moving, but cruel, painful, to watch, especially after the end. It belongs to their best work, but each of their film belongs to their best too.... I am ready to continue to wait for each of their films.

An intriguing, but unfinished film

[iliangathot · 6/10 · 8 October 2022]

Before I begin this review, I should note that I am Belgian myself, and that I therefore happily applaud any movie originating from my country as there aren't many of them releasing.

That being said, this film might leave you a little unsatisfied. The story is about an immigrant girl trying to get an allowance to remain in Belgium instead of having to return to her country of origin. Meanwhile, she has to take care of her younger brother.

The story itself is intriguing and honestly quite interesting to see. A lot of it feels very realistic and profound, and that dept to the characters is felt through their connections to other characters. However, the writing, at times, is not so good. The dialogue given to a small boy doesn't fully feel appropriate, nor does it feel very intentional to make him feel more mature. It contains a lot of sentences that a child that young just wouldn't say.

At the other hand, the actor who plays the young brother Tori did his job very well. He plays the boy in a very dynamic and organic style and deserves quite a bit of praise. This can, sadly, not be said about the lead of this movie, Lokita. She is played quite blandly, with very stiff dialogue and, and this does disappoint me quite a bit, a feeling as if she just reciting her lines. Her actions feel as if they are just being read from the script, and although this isn't completely the fault of the directors, and I'm sure the actress did her best as well, this does hurt the movie quite a bit.

The plot of the film is quite complex in that it is, as I said above, quite a realistic picture, yet also not a straightforward one. There are a lot of situations where choices need to be made that don't seem to be the good ones, yet they are the only ones the characters can make to survive. The plot is also quite good, really, with one big problem. It ends way to soon.

The film is just shy of an hour and a half, yet it feels as if it was written as a two hour picture. The last half hour seems to have just been forgotten, leaving a lot of subplots, but also just the main plot, unresolved, which is in more than one way very unsatisfying. It really feels as if they had two hours of a picture, noticed too late that the deadline was due the day after, and just wrapped it up. I am sure that isn't what happened. It is just a way of describing the feeling I had leaving the theatre, but knowing that this was an intentional choice only makes it worse.

So overall, it is a film with a few ups and downs. It has a great premise, and a few scenes that will really move you and even take you to the edge of your seat, but it fails quite dramatically on other facets, mainly the ending, dialogue and lead. It is therefore not necessarily a movie I would suggest to others, but if you watch it, I'm sure you won't feel as if you wasted money on a ticket either.

Often deeply moving

[richard-1787 · 6/10 · 27 October 2022]

Almost everything bad happens to Lokita, who has fled some African country for a better life in Belgium. She is abused by drug dealers, fake religious people, etc. All the while she tries to protect a young boy who has traveled with her - perhaps her brother - and placate her mother, who is still in Africa.

You want to split the heads of the men who abuse her with a baseball bat like rotten pumpkins.

But after awhile, you're hoping the movie will end. It makes its point early on. After that, I'm not sure what is gained by showing us more and more abuse of the poor girl.

Here are a few extra words to get this up to 600 characters.

Tori and Lokita

[CinemaSerf · 6/10 · 19 November 2022]

Pablo Schils ("Tori") is really strong in this story of a young boy and his sister "Lokita" (Joely Mbundu) who have migrated from Africa to Belgium, with the latter trying to obtain the necessary papers to stay. "Tori" has been deemed a legitimate refugee on the grounds that he may well be persecuted as the child of a sorcerer back home, but she is struggling to prove that they are actually related as he was taken to an orphanage at a young age. She acts very much as the boy's confidante, mother, sister and carer - encouraging him to study at school, whilst both work for "the Chef" (Alban Ukaj) delivering his drugs for him whilst he cooks the Focaccia in a small restaurant. Things take a turn for the desperate when it becomes clear that "Lokita" is going to have to take a more clandestine route to obtaining her documents, and to that end agrees to be a live-in carer of a different sort - at a cannabis growing facility. Unused to being apart, the two find an ingenious way to communicate - and to thrive - but that is not without it's risks... The thing with this film is that though both performances are engaging, the story lacks for plausibility. You would expect both characters to have acquired a certain street-wisdom, but some of the dialogue from this eleven year old boy is unrealistic. He is just too shrewd and adaptable! The story also appears to have run out of time and/or money as the plot development abruptly - and rather tragically - stops. It is all too hurried at the end and that is really quite disappointing. That said, there is chemistry in spades between the two actors and the Dardenne's do convey something of their love for each other despite their increasingly frustrating predicament in an interesting fashion - using their favourite song to poignant effect, too. Well worth a watch, but it would certainly have benefitted from a more evened-out delivery, all round.

Brilliant and moving

[thebeachlife · 10/10 · 20 August 2023]

The Dardenne brothers normally pick an acute topic, mainly a social one, then feed it with a story and they have never failed to very accurately reflect the reality we are living in bringing their message to our heads and our hearts and making us ruminate on lots of things.

This time, they opted for the topic of clandestine children smuggled to Europe, desperately trying to survive in the world they believe in. We can see to what extremes they are ready to go in order to stay here and we know this is no game and there is absolutely no way back.

Terrifyingly real, tragic, moving, eye-opening, brilliant.

A tough but engaging film

[ethanbresnett · 6/10 · 18 December 2022]

Tori and Lokita is a very simple but well observed story about two young refugees who settle in Belgium and try to get by.

It boasts two commanding and sympathetic performances from the two leads, who have a great chemistry together.

The story is quite a simple one, but it is well executed. There aren't too many bells and whistles in the film making, letting the story do all the work.

I do think there could have been a little more depth in parts, and certain elements could have been pushed and developed a bit further, but on the whole it is a strongly emotional and intriguing story.

Overall a solid film that is very engaging, but perhaps could have been fleshed out and stylised a little more.

Made Me Tear Up

[nairtejas · 9/10 · 9 December 2022]

Tori and Lokita broke my heart. The final minutes of this drama played with my heart so unabashedly I had to resort to crying. Thinking of kids in my family, thinking of a little boy and a girl in my family who are so close to my heart. The Dardenne Brothers do their thing again in building a story that speaks volumes of the current, tried times. In here, they narrate the story of a boy and an elder girl who are hoping for a better life together in Belgium as siblings having left Africa as refugees. Yet in the developed world, they face rampant bureaucracy, corruption, child labour, and abuse. By the end of it all - it's the same story we all know - I was devastated. I may never watch this film again.

(Watched at the 2022 International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) in Trivandrum.)

Great and tragic script

[martinpersson97 · 10/10 · 10 February 2023]

The Dardenne brothers are an acclaimed pair of favourites to be sure - always knowing how to convey the human drama in effectice ways.

And this might very well be one of their better films and an exquisit continuation of the promising 2023 movie season.

The actors, though very young, do an incredible job, and when I say actors, I mainly refer to the two leads. The supporting cast is good as well, but it deliberatively focuses almost solely on the two protagonist kids.

The script is incredible, very realistic, eye opening and above all, tragic. It feels like a very important film that should definitely be seen.

Besides that, in a technical level, it's a very fluid piece of art as well. It's beautifully shot and edited and the cinematography is great.

Overall, a truly incredible and tragic piece of art.

Well-observed tale by the Dardenne Brothers

[gortx · 4 April 2023]

The Dardenne brothers' (Luc and Jean-Pierre) latest is another in their generally low key, but precisely well-observed tales. Adolescent Tori (Pablo Schils) and his older sister Lokita (Joely Mbundu) are African immigrants in Belgium who are fighting to remain in their new country together. Immigration officials are dubious of their claims with the elder woman being on particularly shaky ground.

The plot dynamics are, as is almost always the case with the Dardennes, less important than the day to day lives of the main characters. Tori and Lokita must not only deal with the government, but, also the prejudices of local law enforcement and citizenry, but, also an entire underground system which takes abusive advantage of their migrant status. It becomes an acutely painful reality that Tori and Lokita often are put in the position of breaking the law in order to remain "within" the law.

Schils and Mbundu have natural screen presences that transcend the dialogue. Their wills to survive shine through even if their characters may lack the ability to verbalize their struggle. Alban Ukaj is effective as a slimy local businessman who humiliates the immigrants even as he professes to be assisting them.

TORI AND LOKITA is a bit too brief to fully capture the totality of their lives, but, there's a humanity, and, for the Dardennes, even a bit of righteous anger that manages to make its points.