Tricks - Sztuczki (12A)

It is easy to understand why Tricks won the Golden Lion at the Polish Film Festival in 2007, and why it was chosen as the Polish entry in the Best Foreign Language Picture category at the 2009 Academy Awards. Andrzej Jakimowski's understated slice of life in a small sun-drenched Polish town is exquisitely photographed, expertly staged, shot through with an appealing dash of magical realism and lit up by engaging characters and magnetic performances.

For sure, there's also great pleasure to be had in the film's whimsical, breezy tone and episodic, vignette-like form – but these qualities are also symptomatic of a lack of precision in Jakimowski's storytelling that ultimately undermines his film. Because of this shortcoming Tricks plays like a series of underdeveloped plots, with no one strand developing convincingly or coherently enough to reel in the viewer and deliver a strong emotional punch.

If there is one plotline that does threaten to dominate Tricks, it is the story of six-year-old Stefek's attempts to reconnect with his estranged father, whom he believes he sees most days waiting for a connection at the train station. It's unclear for most of the film whether Stefek's suspicions are true, as his older sister Elka is coy on the matter, and (as we learn in a neat visual joke) Stefek has only a biro-defaced photograph of his long-lost father to go on. Still, after Elka puts thoughts in Stefek's mind about his ability to alter fate to his own ends by way of a series of apparently innocuous actions, Stefek works on a plan to keep his father in town and force him into the path of the young boy's long-suffering mother.

Narrative-wise the biggest problem with Stefek's enterprise is that its successful completion would hardly seem likely to secure the boy's future happiness. Stefek's need for a male role model is clear (earlier in the film we see him taking a motorbike ride with Elka's boyfriend Jerzy) but his father has abandoned him once already and the man at the station is shown to be more a cocksure sleaze than a repentant family man. You sense that Stefek's efforts are all in a lost cause, which would of course be fine if Tricks was presented as a tragedy – but there isn't a trace of that, low-key or otherwise. Ultimately, it is hard to shrug off the feeling that the director has been sidetracked by the need to create a sense of mischievous fun and charming whimsy (to this end he's certainly aided by Tomasz Gassowski's lively score), as the film is filled with recurring vignettes and inconsequential sub-plots, such as Elka's attempt to land an Italian-speaking job at a local company and Jerzy's flirtation with buying a classic car from a fellow enthusiast. The repetitive motifs of pigeons in flight and trains in motion (including one or two carefully framed shots of both) only serve to emphasise the sense of play.

All this makes for a pleasant but underwhelming viewing experience. Tricks is at its best when it stays close to its blonde-haired, croaky-voiced and motor-mouthed main protagonist. First-time actor Damian Ul proves a captivating screen presence and gives an authentic and memorable performance as the independently spirited but emotionally vulnerable Stefek. On the few occasions when the camera takes the young boy's point of view, there's a palpable frisson that prompts the viewer into wondering what might have been if Jakimowski had kept his focus tighter. Then, we might be talking about an evocation of childhood to rank alongside Spirit of the Beehive, or even The 400 Blows, instead of just another feelgood European art movie.