The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s opening night selection, “The Zigzag Kid,” transports young-at-heart viewers on a magic carpet of charming high jinks and manic energy.
An unabashed crowd-pleaser in a Day-Glo package, the movie dispenses laughs and life lessons en route to a poignant moral about the family ties that bind.
Adapted by Belgian director Vincent Bal, who transposed Israeli novelist David Grossman’s beloved 1994 coming-of-age adventure fantasy from the Promised Land to a candy-cane Europe, “The Zigzag Kid” is fueled by primal adolescent urges. Not the ones you’re thinking of, but the pressing need to comprehend the past, navigate the present and manipulate the future.
A family film whose most ardent admirers will be children, “The Zigzag Kid” screens Thursday, July 25 in San Francisco, followed by three additional dates at times well suited for youngsters.
The opening credits immediately set the tone in smile-inducing style, employing split-screens, a full-spectrum palette and a pop score to evoke the spy movies (and parodies) of the 1960s and ’70s.
As his 13th birthday approaches, Nono is starting to figure out he can’t abide the rules and conventions that most people passively accept. He’s not a rebel — he admires his detective father to the extent that he mimics Dad’s deductive skills and wants to follow in his shoes — so much as a creative thinker and fearless experimenter.
The title comes from Nono’s iconoclasm, as well as the gold pin in the shape of a Z that the world’s greatest thief, Felix Glick, leaves behind as his signature.
But I’m getting ahead of the story. After one of Nono’s bright ideas accidentally sends a cousin’s bar mitzvah reception up in smoke, our erstwhile hero is dispatched to boring Uncle Shmuel as punishment. But Dad’s plan is derailed within moments of Nono boarding the train, launching the boy on a mission that takes him to the South of France and back.
“The Zigzag Kid” is tons of fun as it sets its inspired plot in motion, while Nono is a splendid protagonist who never devolves from endearing to tiresome. It helps that he’s aware he’s not completely self-sufficient, for that dollop of humility tempers his precociousness.
In fact, Nono relishes the maternal attention and affection of his father’s (ahem) live-in secretary, Gaby. The boy never knew his mother, who died when he was an infant, and he’d be very happy if the current domestic arrangement continued ad infinitum. (Or, better yet, was sealed with marriage vows if his father could muster the moxie to propose).
But I’m getting behind the story. No matter. Suffice to say that Nono crosses paths with the 60-something Felix Glick, who quickly presents himself as an alternate role model with his blend of resourcefulness and suavity.
At a certain point, especially for those adults who have sussed out the relationships among the characters before Nono does, the pieces start to click into place, dissipating the film’s aura of cleverness. Everyone likes a happy ending, sure — although be advised a tragedy is revealed along the way — but “The Zigzag Kid” trumpets an allegiance to the primacy of the two-parent family that is downright Spielbergian.
Oddly, I discerned no particular insights into the lives, past or present, of European Jews. In the process of relocating the story from Israel to Europe, Bal appears to have focused on preserving the novel’s themes and skipped the opportunity to allude to 20th-century history or current events.
One consequence is that “The Zigzag Kid” could be anybody, and not necessarily a fully assimilated Jewish boy whose pre–bar mitzvah entry to manhood consists of a unique and remarkable treasure hunt. He finds his mother’s identity, and his, and we get to go along for the ride. Not a bad deal for all concerned, actually.
“The Zigzag Kid,” 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 25 at the Castro in S.F., 1:50 p.m. Aug. 4 at the CinéArts in Palo Alto, 6:15 p.m. Aug. 6 at the California in Berkeley, 6:10 p.m. Aug. 12 at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. Dutch, English and French, with English subtitles. Director Vincent Bal and actor Jessica Zeijlmaker will be present at S.F. screening. (Unrated, 95 minutes)