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The makers of this Belgian drama, about a twenty-year-old hustler who sells his infant son like a bag of weed, have referred to it as a “love story,” and so it is. As the film opens, we discover that Bruno (Jérémie Renier), a panhandler and petty thief, has traded his apartment for a hat and a jacket, leaving his girlfriend Sonia (Déborah François) fresh out of the maternity ward, clutching their wailing newborn and needing shelter. Spendthrift Dad does spring for a stroller at one point, but we sense the grown enfant is being wheeled in some other direction. Indeed he makes a deal to sell nine-day-old Jimmy on the black market for a wad of Euros and then appears genuinely surprised when Sonia doesn’t buy his argument that they can simply make another baby to replace the one he’s just hocked. As Bruno hustles to recover Jimmy, L’Enfant nudges its protagonist and its audience toward unlikely affection. Tough as it is, L’Enfant commands our care by practicing what it preaches. No wonder the filmmakers call it a love story.

Now playing at select local theaters