The Silence of Lorna

Albanian dry cleaner Lorna (Dobroshi) is always the bride and never the illegal alien.

Operating a low-key marriage-for-visa scam with mafioso taxi driver Fabio (Rongione), her newly-issued Belgian citizenship means they can tap a Russian "fiance" for a few thousand euros.

However, Lorna is still married to self-destructive junkie Claudy (Renier), the obliging Belgian national she fraudulently strolled down the aisle with to get herself a passport.

And - despite his hopless addiction to heroin - he still refuses to die a horrible death, freeing up Lorna to move on to husband-of-convenience number two.

But when her quickie divorce from Claudy does come come through unexpectedly, Lorna discovers her silence has lethal repurcussions as the monstrous realities of Fabio's plans become apparent.

Filmed in the drab Belgian city of Liege, this grim view of the immigrant experience from Belgian film-makers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne is given wing by compellingly natural performances.

Dobroshi is pitch-perfect as Lorna, the sham marriage specialist whose mundane reality is only enlivened by her dream of opening a snack bar with money secreted away from her scams.

Meticulously paced, the narrative grittily convinces with all the unsavoury violence taking place offscreen yet leaving a pall of malevolent dread hanging in the air.

After the Palme d'Or-winning L'Enfant and Le Fils, the Dardenne brothers are emerging as the choniclers-par-excellence of the underclass existence from skint opportunists to marriage scammers.

The Silence of Lorna is a film worth shouting about.

Tim Evans