The Great Acting Blog: “Thomas Doret In The Kid With The Bike”

Doret plays Cyril, a 12 year old who has been dumped into foster care by his father, who, unbeknownst to the boy, doesn’t give a damn about him, and just wants rid of him. Doret runs away from the foster home to his dad’s apartment. When the caretakers find him, Doret flees to a nearby doctor’s surgery where he grabs hold of a woman, Samantha, so that they won’t take him away. To calm Doret down, they take him back to his dad’s apartment, and show him that it is empty and deserted, confirming that his father has left. With Samantha, Doret finally finds his father, who is however, none too pleased when the boy shows up, and tells him he never wants to see him again. Samantha in turn, takes the heartbroken Doret under her wing. However, falling under the spell of a local drug dealer, Doret robs a shopkeeper, beating the owner and his son with a baseball bat. Fearing Doret has been indentified in the robbery, the drug dealer abandons Doret and forces him to keep the stolen money. Doret gets caught by the police, but the matter is dealt with through a mediation with the shop owner, who accepts Doret’s apology. Some time later, the son of the shop owner sees Doret by chance on the street, and beats him up, forcing Doret to hide up in a tree for safety, until the son throws a stone, which causes Doret to fall out of the tree. Doret lies on the ground, seemingly unconscious, until he comes to, and calmly walks away from the trouble.  

Doret’s performance is remarkable in it’s simplicity and directness. There is a scene where Doret visits his father again, only this time to offer the money he got from the robbery, thinking this will win his father’s acceptance. His father is a little stunned, before refusing the money and sending Doret on his way. Doret hardly inflects the scene at all, he offers the money to his father with an almost animalistic simplicity, and it is this simplicity which renders the moment heartbreaking. Compare this to James Dean’s performance in East Of Eden, where there is a similar scene of rejection involving money; Dean explains the character’s pain to us with the preposterous emotional excretion; “YOU’RE TEARING ME APAAARRTT!”, rendering the moment false and meaningless. Doret is courageous in resisting the temptation to explain what is happening, enabling us to engage with the scene for ourselves, which in turn, makes it meaningful. 

Doret had never acted before this film, or, at least, I have not been able to find any record of him doing so, and I am not aware of him receiving any training, and yet he is able to deliver this quite brilliant performance. No-one can know what the future holds for him, the vast majority non-actors fail to kick on after terrific debuts. Having said that, Doret does re-inforce my general view that acting is a talent which cannot be instilled.