Ahmed is a thirteen-year-old Belgian Muslim boy being drawn, with alarming speed, toward the most radical and violent strains of his faith. Convinced that his teacher is a sinner, he attempts clumsily to stab her—and fails. He is sent to a rehabilitation center, nothing like an adult prison: he can leave to work on a farm, interact with others, stay connected to the real world. The state supports him, provides practical and psychological help, and offers him a path back to civic life. Yet this seemingly sound system underestimates how fierce a thirteen-year-old's feelings can be. Young Ahmed is a coming-of-age story in reverse—a descent into the abyss of a shy, insecure boy without a father, whose closed and susceptible nature makes him easy prey for those who would exploit him. Adolescence is always fraught; Ahmed struggles with what every teenager struggles with—the need to be understood, valued, loved, to belong. But he lives in an environment that preys on these vulnerabilities, pushing him toward the darkest corners of the adult world. And yet Ahmed, clinging with blind loyalty to an absolute (as only adolescence can), still carries within him everything that could save him from self-destruction. He is moved when he discovers that a girl likes him, but he has no idea how to handle his own emotions. The adults who help him seem not to notice that small feelings can matter more than grand moral convictions. The film doesn't show us how Ahmed radicalized so quickly. Instead, it focuses—simply and directly—on the most critical phase: we watch him posture as an adult, even as he will remember, by the film's end, that he is still barely more than a child.
Original title: Le jeune Ahmed
Country of production: France / Belgium
Year: 2019
Duration: 90'
Genre: Drama
Director: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
Cast: Idir Ben Addi, Olivier Bonnaud, Myriem Akheddiou