Un Sac de Billes

Doillon's facility for extracting astonishing, apparently spontaneous performances from child players presumably explains his involvement in this adaptation of Joseph Joffo's autobiographical best-seller, describing the experiences of a Jewish family during the Occupation. Always on the move, pretending to be Catholic, to be Algerian, splitting up and reuniting, never safe: the family's adventures are nothing if not affecting. But for Doillon, with his evident loathing of 'big scenes' and push-button responses, the film becomes an exercise in deflection, with all the obvious drama pushed into the background, the children's games and fantasies or a confusion over some orange juice taking precedence over Nazis, police raids and so on. The material may have been uncongenial, but Doillon does his honourable best by it.