It might be true that the things that break us in life are sometimes the only things that can put us back together. For the protagonist of the strong new French drama, The Son, a former father and husband who has shut down after a tragedy, finds himself, by chance, inexplicably drawn to his child's murderer, that might just be the case.

Olivier (Olivier Gourmet, in a profound performance) leads an empty, isolated life. Since the tragic death of his son five years earlier, he has thrown himself into his work as a carpentry teacher for young,

working-class men. Once a husband and father, he's now defined by his work and little else. Even in his time outside of work, he rarely removes his tool belt. He seems to have no friends and minimal contact with colleagues, and even his answering machine messages revolve strictly around the rote mechanics of his job.

In the daytime he runs an incredibly tight ship at work. In the evening, he comes home to his quiet apartment where he does a bit of light exercise but little else. Here and there he sees his ex-wife Magali (Isabella Soupart), now re-married, pregnant and on to a new life. But as progressive as she has moved forward, he has remained stuck in time, creating an insular, box-like world, devoid of real human contact and ordered by obsessive control.

One day a mysterious young man (Morgan Marinne) enters his classes and Olivier's ordered world is thrown into disarray. When it turns out the young parolee is the murderer of Olivier's own son, he finds himself gradually drawn to the teen, mysteriously inching his way closer to an answer to the unknowable questions plaguing his mind and heart.

Directors Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne show a remarkable sense of control and precision as they etch out the details of Olivier's life, from the focused, obsessive schematics of his work to the searching and tormented confusions of a man who has known the deepest sadness imaginable. Of course, unbeknownst to the kid, who takes a liking to Olivier, there are ulterior motives at work that are too complicated for him to comprehend.

As the film progresses, Olivier slowly positions himself more closely to the vacuous teen. And in this dance we see a man fascinated by the opportunity to look his darkest enemy in the face; to mortalize the being who has brought him low; to stand with the unsuspecting devil who has created and haunted his worst nightmares.

It all builds to a suspenseful and mysterious climax worthy of Chabrol, where motivations are unclear and outcomes even more ambiguous. The climactic scenes have an almost terrifying power in their understated way, as the adult realizes the psychological power the boy holds over him, and carefully measures his every question and phrase, as if terrified of what details the boy might reveal.

The film is built essentially on the powerful performance of Olivier Gourmet, the Best Actor winner at Cannes last year. Rarely does an actor embody a role so fully and suggest such vast recesses of emotion and psychological despair, layered with a superficial veneer of functional day-to-day life.

Cinematographer Alain Marcoen holds Olivier in a very tight grip with an effective use of hand-held close-ups that allow every nuance and shifting emotion to play directly to the camera with maximum intimacy. His almost obsessive focus on Olivier's face and eyes, often hidden beneath thick glasses, heightens the sense of ambiguity about his true motivations. We're close on him; very tight. And yet we are still unsure where he's going. There's no easy read on him. But we're sure of his intensity and watch each scene unfold through his eyes, sometimes confused, probing and unsure of where to go next.

That's one of the film's greatest strengths - its inability to describe or define the exact process Olivier is living through with Francis. It's harrowing, in a sense, to face such personal demons in the face of such a young man. At one point, Magali asks Olivier to explain his fascination with Francis: "Why do you do it?" His response: "I don't know." There's no easy answer why. But the directors make it very clear that in absence of a clearly defined reason, Olivier absolutely must keep moving forward, getting closer to his demons.

That ambiguity is well-represented in the film's tone, which feels to be something like melancholic, mysterious doom. It's not really a drama though there are certain dramatic scenes that carry significant weight. It's not really a mystery because we know the answers early on. And though it veers into some undeniable suspense during a late-act road trip, it's not quite a thriller. All of these tones create a very satisfying myriad of real human emotions, the kind which don't find their way into Hollywood films about grief, however good they might be (though Todd Field's In the Bedroom comes close).

The Son is built on a provocative idea - that the one who took his wife, son and life away somehow holds the key to his pain; knows the answers to why a random event constructed so carelessly would forever change his life.

The final shot is at once charged with grief and meaning. Sometimes life brings great pain, and there's nothing to do about it but emerge from our shelter and meet it head on. In the oppressive and unflinching world of Olivier and the film itself, life goes on around us and past us - but not always with us.