All Yours

Challenging relationships seem to be a preoccupation of Belgian director David Lambert whose debut feature Beyond The Walls, also about an intense male romance, was presented in Cannes Critics’ Week.

He returns to the fray with All Yours, part of the international competition at Karlovy Vary. This time the odd couple are Belgian baker Henry (Jean-Michel Balthazar) and a young sex worker from Argentina (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) whom he meets on the internet.

He provides the plane ticket and the next thing is that Lucas arrives with his backpack and little else to take up residence in a small Belgian town, which boasts simply a solitary bar and not much else.

It also has a bakery owned by the corpulent but indefatigable Henry, who is looking for love and companionship. It is one thing to let the imagination run riot with the young man’s erotic exploits online (presented in fairly graphic detail) and quite another to have him live under your own roof.

Henri also expects him to help out at the bakery as an apprentice for no financial reward. There are some furtive sexual fumblings, but the tensions mount as Henry tries to control his guest and smothers him with overbearing concern for his welfare.

Lucas breaks free to strike up a friendship with a young woman who works in the shop as an assistant. Soon he becomes part of her family, looking after her young son Jeff and sharing her bed.

Lambert laces this potentially volatile concoction with plenty of humour while the small town setting serves to heighten the repressed emotions reaching out in search of a wider community and support.

There are uneven interludes including the scene where the baker dances for far too long to an opera theme, but Lambert’s work with the actors and his sense of visual style mark him out as a talent to track.