A Brighter Tomorrow

Mehdi (Soufiane Guerrab) is a safecracker - although that description makes things sound much more glamorous than they are. He and a couple of old school friends, M'Barek (M'Barek Belkouk) and Thibault (Thibault Cathalifaud)  have got things down to a fine art, but it's basically a case of clever planning and a lot of brute force. None of them are getting any younger, though, and Mehdi's responsibilities are weighing on him as he tries to patch things up with Sarah (Souheila Yacoub), the mum of his baby son, who moved out because she didn't want to share their home with Mehdi's mum.

Yassine Qnia's low-key take on all this is stitched well into the fabric of the working-class banlieu. Sarah and Thibault both hold down 'regular' jobs - she at a hairdresser's and he in a recycling plant - but it's clear how Mehdi views this sort of "shit work". Equally, he has a dim view of the pizzeria business M'Barek dreams of getting off the ground, somehow unable to see that the business of thievery doesn't exactly offer a rosy future.

This is Qnia's first feature and his inexperience shows a little in terms of his storytelling. While a late-night robbery plays out with tension and the director also shows an ability to handle the potential rekindling of romance between Mehdi and Sarah with a restraint that heightens the sense of Sarah feeling torn between choices, the move from one of these 'worlds' to another lacks fluidity. A subplot involving a younger man who Mehdi occasionally also co-opts for dirty work, also feels as though it has been added more to bulk out the running time than to add to the overall story.

While there's plenty to be said for a subtle approach, Qnia is too laidback for his own good, with the drama struggling to build up a head of steam so that we simply don't care enough about the outcome. There's nothing here beyond the strong cast to mark it out from any number of other 'struggling thief faces turning point' films and rather than building up a head of steam it fades to an anti-climax. Yacoub is the real deal, though, bringing complexity to every glance and micro-expression, expect to see her face on screen a lot more.