Un jeu d’enfants is a French horror film first released in 2001, directed by Laurent Tuel.  The film stars Karin Viard, Charles Berling, Ludivine Sagnier, Camille Vatel and Alexandre Bongibault.  It has also been released under the title: Child’s Game.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Marianne and Jacques are a young middle-class couple who live in a chic Parisian apartment with their two young children.  One day, Marianne receives an unexpected visit from two strangers, Mr and Mrs Worms, who claim to have lived in the apartment when they were children and who ask if they can just take a look around their former home. Marianne agrees, but no sooner have the mysterious Worms left than things take an inexplicable turn for the worse.  The two children appear to be behaving very oddly, Marianne is cautioned for shop-lifting, and Jacques has a nervous breakdown after assaulting one of his colleagues at work.  And there is worse to come.   Marianne suspects that their apartment is the cause of their bad luck and soon discovers that it has a tragic history...

One of the better class of psychological thriller in recent years, Un jeu d’enfants is a gripping yet quite disturbing tale of obsession and delusion.   After a cleverly ambiguous beginning, it soon becomes clear that the film is being presented from the distorted perspective of a stressed-out married couple, so that implausible and irrational events take on a terrifying sense of realism, locking the viewing in a nightmare world from which there is no escape.

Strong performances from lead actors Karin Viard and Charles Berling lend the story credibility which it might otherwise lack, whilst the excellent photography contrasts, with great effect, the banality of everyday life with the chilling horror of mounting paranoia.

© James Travers 2001

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