The Dardenne brothers

Almost everyone wants to do the right thing and act with integrity, but can't quite get it across or make it work for them in the films of the Dardenne Brothers.

The moral dimension, in which each major character moves, is like real life and not like a film at all.

Good intentions are set as traps.

Consequences, often fatal, come from actual decisions made by people trying to make their lives better, even trying to make the lives of those around them better.

As far as a plot, nothing ever happens that shouldn't. The first scene will bear witness to the last scene, and so on. Nothing much ever takes place, other than murder, drug abuse, infidelity, child exploitation, identity theft, blackmail, and almost every other form of human mayhem.

Goodness isn't some mask a major character wears in the films of the Dardenne Brothers. Goodness is his or her's real face, but ripped off, damaged, altered beyond recognition, not by the life forces at work within the individual character but by social forces that lie in wait outside the individual.