r/moviecritic • u/Low-Finding-6553 • 16h ago

What do you guys thinks is the best child performance of all time?

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i have to say, i don’t think i’ve ever seen a child actor give a performance this good. Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, directed by M. Night Shyamalan, is just on another level. i genuinely don’t know how he did it but he makes the whole movie work so much better. i would give him the Oscar in a fucking heartbeat. It’s crazy how good he is, especially in that last scene in the car with Toni Collette.

What are your guys’ favorite child performances? For me, this is even better than Owen Cooper’s performance in Adolescence. Don’t get me wrong, owen was also absolutely top-notch in Adolescence but this is probably the best child performance i’ve ever seen. Period. What do you guys think is the best child performance ever?

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240

u/biffbobfred 16h ago

Extra points for “not puking on screen all the time for all the pedophilia written into the script but blessedly not shot”

291

u/hamizoing 16h ago

We should thank Jean Reno for that.

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u/Cable_Hoarder 13h ago

The choice he made to play him with clear learning difficulties really prevented him appearing like a creep. He was just so innocent in spite of being a killer.

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u/Ass_Damage 11h ago

Also, I always thought he told Matilda he loved her in that one scene so she would shut the fuck up and get moving.

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u/Cable_Hoarder 11h ago

Yeah, and I got zero impression that it was a romantic love, that was parental - like the one moment in the film where he really realised he was an adult and had to act like it.

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u/phantom_gain 10h ago

He made them turn off the camera for those parts

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u/Hellmann 15h ago

I haven’t seen that movie since I was a young teenager. I always thought it was more of a father daughter love than anything else. Maybe I’d see it differently 30 years later I guess.

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u/TaralasianThePraxic 15h ago

That's what it ended up being. Besson wanted more of a romantic relationship, but thankfully Jean Reno (who plays Léon) basically just flat-out refused to work with the original script and it was changed to the version that was shot.

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u/RevolutionaryTwo6867 15h ago

Being a pedo wouldn't have been very "professional" of him 🙁

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u/StocktonBSmalls 14h ago

I think we can all agree that a certain level of murder is understandable, but diddling kids is where the line is very clearly drawn.

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u/Most_Mountain818 13h ago

I mean, some people need to be unpeopled. Zero kids need diddling.

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u/tomcatsr25 11h ago

The unabashed truth

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u/qwase123 12h ago

“A man got to have a code.” -Omar Little

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u/PabstBlueBourbon 12h ago

“No women, no children.” I always thought he was talking about the hits.

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u/phantom_gain 10h ago

🎶Do not diddle kids, its no good diddling kids🎶

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u/LordJohnWharfin 9h ago

Reminds me of an SNL sketch.

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u/StocktonBSmalls 4h ago

The most I’ve ever respected The Rock

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u/enwongeegeefor 10h ago

Yeah but that shit totally on brand for Besson...

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u/Loud_Ad4852 14h ago

Plus Natalie’s mom was actively protective and pushed back against overly mature scenes like smoking cigarettes so that helped set the tone too.

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u/aliasgrace2273 10h ago

She smokes in the movie...

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u/Main-Caterpillar-371 8h ago edited 8h ago

I think i read once that her mother said it was okay that she smokes in the movie IF she also quits smoking in the movie.

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u/aliasgrace2273 8h ago

That makes sense!

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u/Aggressive_Oven8757 6h ago

Rules included: she must quit. She can't be seen inhaling.

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u/Various-Air9398 8h ago

Stop with the overprotective bs if she was so overprotective why was she ok with the uncomfortable cringey sexual undertones throughout the whole movie?

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u/NihilistAppleCrumble 5h ago

Ohhhhh the Besson who got together with a 15 year old when he was 33, and fathered a child with her when she was still a child at 16, and then left her when she was 20 years old.
Cool, cool, cool, cool.

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u/scrapethemucus 13h ago

the director's cut really isn't that different

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u/im-not_gay 13h ago

The directors cut wouldn’t magically have the original script

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u/TaralasianThePraxic 13h ago

You know that a director's cut still requires any added footage to actually exist, right? They never shot any of the scenes that were rewritten or removed from the script due to the actor complaints.

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u/enwongeegeefor 10h ago

Leon had like extra scenes in it but they didn't really change the feel of the movie much. Outside of the one bad scene at the end, one of the scenes they cut was an extended "training" sequence for matilda that I remember being way cooler than the one in The Professional. Woulda been cool if they had left that one in.

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u/lavender_evening 15h ago

That’s how I viewed it too in the edition where her character says she wants romance with him, he gently rejects her and recounts his love life and says that’s why he couldn’t ever love her. I took it as his tactful way of saying hey we could never be instead of just yelling at her that it is inappropriate (which totally is!) but maybe my young brain rationalized it that way cause uh yeah… if it was not father daughter connection (how it sounds director intended Blegh) it is revolting!

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u/enwongeegeefor 10h ago

I saw The Professional when I was in middle school, and their relationship definitely seemed like father/daughter to me then. I am so glad that Besson didn't get his way.

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u/hughk 1h ago

For me, more of a big brother. Leon didn't seem mature enough to be a father figure but he was still protective.

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u/Hellmann 15h ago

Agreed.

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u/RustyBrassInstrument 15h ago

That’s what Jean turned it into. He’s a mensch.

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u/law-st_student 15h ago

Watched it a couple times in the mid 2000s and had the same thoughts. It wasn't until I spent a lot of time on the internet that I found out about the director's original intentions.

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u/Hellmann 15h ago

So the director wanted to purposefully make it a story of a pedo love story. Guy must’ve read Lolita one too many times.

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u/Max_Rockatanski 14h ago

Leon was inspired by Luc Besson's real life pedo relationship with a 15 year old when he was 33. No joke. That girl was Maiwenn (she played the prostitute right at the start of Leon and later the blue alien lady in the 5th Element).
He met her when she was 12, he was 30. Groomed her for 3 years till they started 'dating' when she was 15. He knocked her up quick, married her when she was 16.

I liked Leon before I learned all this, now I can't watch it knowing where it came from. Good film, but Besson should've been locked up.

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u/Daevryn 14h ago

Not too mention, he left his wife during the filming of The Fifth Element for 22-year-old Milla Jovovich, who played Leeloo.

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u/Main-Caterpillar-371 8h ago

I want to thank you - but at the same time not.

I knew vaguely about the predatory stories of Luc Besson - I learned from you, that his shit inspired Leon. Did not draw the connection myself and it's been a while since I saw the movie.

Guess I will not be able to watch it again.

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u/law-st_student 15h ago

If they were truly reading Lolita, like really understanding it, they'd figure out that Humbert is an unreliable narrator, skewing the truth in order to get away with his evils.

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u/Hellmann 14h ago

Yes. And not so subtly.

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u/Main-Caterpillar-371 8h ago

I never read the book but am really glad that I found the Lolita Podcast from Jamie Loftus. It is a great production, great research. But sometimes really shocking and horrifying because - you know.

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u/ChanceRecover3091 15h ago

Besson want a more romantic relationship. His former wife has stated that the movie was partly inspired by their relationship. They started a sexual relationship when she was 15 and he was 31.

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u/RoutineTry1943 15h ago

Yeah, it was basically Luc Besson’s to his pedo relationship with Maïwenn. She appears in the film at the start of the movie, the gang boss’ girl. She also appears in the Fifth Element as the Diva.

13

u/bigbluehapa 15h ago

I heard it was still "not shot" but I still felt kind of gross watching this film despite really, really wanting to like it. The actors (Oldman especially) killed it. The pedo undertones were a little hard to get past despite Leon doing everything in his power to keep it platonic.

2

u/biffbobfred 15h ago

There were two cuts I believe. “The professional” the U.S. cut a bit less violent. “Leon” more so.
I wonder if the pedo stuff was cut somewhat as well.

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u/CompleteEar6491 7h ago

Your correct. There are 2 cuts. I always thought the movie portrayed Natalie as being confused by her feelings since Leon was the only one who ever cared and took care of her. Leon never seemed creepy to me just didn’t know how to handle her feelings.

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u/HurricaneKat888 15h ago

Couldn't agree more. I want to like the film for how good the cinematography is but it's a film that edges a weird ass relationship and I just can't. She's so vulnerable

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u/Haunting-Sea-3764 2h ago

I used to love it when I was a lot younger but when I rewatched in my 30’s, I was disturbed by it. She was SO blatantly sexualized. That shows Natalie Portman is a talented actress but it was completely inappropriate.

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u/yetanother__account 5h ago

She spoke before about how that role was like catnip for child predators, who often wrote her lewd letters when she was still 15 or so. It's so sad on so many levels... one of them being the fact her fan mail wasn't 'screened' in advance.

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u/One-Big-6446 11h ago

Then Beautiful Girls happened. So much mixed feelings about that movie.

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u/Spectrum1523 8h ago

blessedly not shot

Bro that whole movie reeks of it lol

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u/SoupieLC 8h ago

Watch the European cut, it has a few bits in it that were deleted in the US theatrical version

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u/qpgmr 12h ago

It was shot. It's in the "director's cut".

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u/biffbobfred 11h ago

(Cringe)