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Child actor Helena Zengel is terrifying as a violent problem kid who tests the limits of everyone around her in this compelling German drama
A terrifying performance from nine-year-old German child actor Helena Zengel is at the centre of this sombre drama from Nora Fingscheidt. She plays Benni, a violent, uncontrolled and near-feral problem kid who takes the social services to breaking point and beyond. At one stage, a strategic soundtrack use of Nina Simone’s track Ain’t Got No – I Got Life seems to suggest that we should sympathise with Benni as a tiny whirlwind force of nature who resists being crushed by drab authority.
But that’s not how this gruesome, compelling film is playing out. Most of the time, Benni is simply scary, a sociopath in training, quite unteachable and unreformable, horrible to the people trying to help her like the scorpion that stings the frog because that’s its nature. Benni has a charming streak that has seduced a number of social workers to make an emotional investment in her, to take risks for her, to go out on a limb for her, only for her to let them down and in a sense to consume them as eagerly and unrepentantly as a vampire. All the time, her dials are up to 11, screaming, laughing too loud, swearing, punching. Continue reading...