Youth film Warrior shows how lonely it is to deviate from the norm ★★★☆☆

The dream of 11-year-old Dylan (Maik Cillekens) is the same as that of countless other boys his age. He wants to be a professional footballer, or at least very good at football. Who knows, maybe one day a scout will stand along the line at the Rotterdam club VV Maasvogels, when he plays with his team.

For Dylan, the dream ends when he is hit by a car. The serious accident causes a difficult relationship with his friends, all football players, and with his practical father Dennis (Martijn Fischer), who is also his football coach. Dennis puts his son firmly off the team – the boy has to face reality, is his motto.

It’s not that easy. In his fantasy, Dylan is visited by TV presenter and street football hero Soufiane Touzani, who tells him that he can also play football with a wheelchair, although that requires some creativity. Acceptance goes by trial and error.

Superficially it is warrior such a typical Dutch youth film that mixes problems with some good-natured humor and a cheerful tone. But director Camiel Schouwenaar, whose animation film Polska Warrior was awarded the Golden Calf for best short film in 2017, his feature debut secretly gives its own face. This is due, for example, to the social background of the characters. warrior is set on Heijplaat (a cinematically interesting working-class neighborhood in Rotterdam) in a working-class environment – ​​an environment that is shunned by many youth films, but forms a natural, rough yet loving environment.

The screenplay by Job Tichelman, himself confined to a wheelchair, is sober and sensitive at the same time. Without resentment, Tichelman shows how ill-considered children and adults can be when dealing with people with disabilities. And how lonely it is to deviate from the norm.

warrior is not so subtle in all respects; the acting is sometimes shaky (just like the Rotterdam accents of the adult actors) and the plot is not always original. Nevertheless, it is a youth film with its heart in the right place, not afraid to explore inconvenient truths. Some scenes, such as the silent confrontation between Dylan and his father in the bathroom, are worth their weight in gold.