He got game

>>Flemish high-school drama Ben X is the
well-intentioned but uneven story of a social
outcast who escapes into an online world

by MALCOLM FRASER

The previews for the Flemish teen drama Ben X might lead you to believe that it’s a sort of Tron for the 2K, the tale of a teenage boy who goes dangerously deep into the online gaming world. As it turns out, the video-game angle is a bit of a red herring, or Trojan horse, in the case of Ben X. Greg Timmermans stars as Ben, a teenager with Asperger’s Syndrome—a form of high-functioning autism characterized by high intellect and an inability to pick up on social norms.

As you might imagine, these symptoms don’t lead to a high level of popularity in a high school environment, and Ben is mercilessly picked on by two despicable bullies and laughed at by the rest of his schoolmates. He deals with it by escaping into an online fantasy game where he can have control of his identity and destiny.

Writer/director Nic Balthazar was inspired by a true story, which he adapted into a young adults’ novel, a multimedia one-man show, a short film, then this feature. Between his tireless efforts and obviously sincere, good-hearted intentions, I really wish I could say the film was a triumphant success, but it has some fundamental issues.

Chief among these is the decision to have the film’s characters speak to the camera, documentary-style. Even though this is a hopelessly played out, cheap and lazy method of exposition, it could theoretically be effective in the right context. But here, it’s a frustrating and seemingly pointless device that turns out to be a set-up to a somewhat clever, if not entirely convincing, climactic twist. And the frequent bullying scenes are unflinchingly brutal, not to mention manipulative; the film would most likely be worth screening for both teenage bullies and their victims, but to everyone else, it may just be excessive.

I should mention that it won three major prizes at last year’s World Film Festival, so no doubt my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt—as someone with limited interest in revisiting traumatic childhood experiences, and as one of those relics of a bygone age, a person whose knowledge of and interest in video games stops not long after Tron itself.

Ben X opens this Friday, April 11

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