L'enfant

The best movie of the year so far comes out on DVD today in the States. So if you missed it in theaters, here's your chance.

I'll leave it to others to mention that it's won numerous major awards (including last year's Palme d'Or) and that it's been arguably 2006's best-reviewed movie (just look at these raves). And I'll let other critics damn the movie with praise like "it simply shows its audiences how poverty destroys human beings" (that'll overload the server at NetFlix).

What I want you to know is that L'enfant is a gut-wrenching thriller with a climactic chase sequence as nail-biting as anything in your average Hollywood actioner. And although it made me cry, I'm not talking about my-dog-just-got-run-over-by-a-car-and-dragged-six-blocks crying; I'm talking about the kind of tears that bubble up when beauty emerges from unexpected places.