‘Child’ wins top honors at Cannes

CANNES, France – As fatherhood was the theme of many films at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, it was fitting that the top prize-winner Saturday was Belgium’s “The Child” – the heartbreaking portrait of a young petty criminal totally unprepared to become a parent.

“It must be in the planets,” reckons Bill Murray, who plays another reluctant pop in the deadpan comedy “Broken Flowers,” which took second prize.

“The Child” was the second movie by brother filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne to win the prestigious Palme d’Or. Their teen drama “Rosetta” took the main Cannes prize six years ago.

It’s an annual ritual in Cannes for critics to bellyache about the quality of films, and industry types to grumble that they’re all too highbrow and uncommercial. Still, a few should score in the Unitd States, including:

• “A History of Violence.” Viggo Mortensen plays a model family man in small-town Indiana who becomes a local hero after thwarting a robbery, but then is discovered to harbor some ugly secrets.

• “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.” First-time director Tommy Lee Jones also won best actor honors for this brooding, stylish Tex-Mex revenge western.

• “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer get up-close and personal in a manic gumshoe movie spoof.

• “Match Point.” Shown outside the official competition in Cannes, this dark comic thriller set in London and starring Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer and Jonathan Rhys Meyer has been widely praised as a long-overdue return to form for Woody Allen.

• “The Curse Of The Wererabbit.” The big fall release from DreamWorks Animation is the first full-length feature to star the Oscar-winning Plasticine duo of Wallace and his faithful pooch Gromit.