When a couple divorce, during the hearing the judge allows visitation rights to the father (Denis Ménochet) to their 11 year-old son, Julien (Thomas Gioria) at weekends. In the following weeks, the boy is relucatant to be with his father and is wary of him, as his mother (Léa Drucker). In time the situation deteriorates further with any trust eroding.

A slow burner of a drama that leads to an intense and dramatic end with some simmering performances, especially from Ménochet. The camera keeps up close and intimately with the characters, adding to its intensity. The opening, lengthy hearing scene is smart as it gives the legal analysis, but not the emotional one while the emotional one unfolds as the film develops.

This film presents an all-too-familiar saga of domestic abuse. While it is important to raise awareness of this tragic topic, the end result of "Jusqu' à la garde" was all too foreseeable in its portrait of a deadbeat, violent dad.

In the film's opening scene, it is already apparent during the court hearing that the father Antoine has a problem when he fails to listen to the judge. The imposing size and strength of the man, as well as subtle indications of past abuse, should have alerted both the wife's attorney and the magistrate to order strictly supervised visitation rights for the man. The judge kept looking down at and reading her papers when she should have been looking at Antoine and asking the right questions.

As the film progressed, the family was far too slow in alerting the police and getting a restraining order against Antoine. A key moment was when Antoine's own parents witnessed his rage and abusive treatment of his little boy. They should have recognized that the kid was terrified of his raging father. Later, the sister of the abused wife witnessed a physical attack on the wife and "threatened" to call the police! What on earth were they all waiting for?

It was especially the catastrophic effects on the children that were so painful to watch in this train wreck of family dysfunction. The occurrences depicted here deserved a far more insightful approach than the predictable story provided in this film.

"If Miriam's obvious lack of awareness of collecting physically evidence (in the short film, we can see bruises all over her body) is a necessary plot device to veer the narrative into that particular grueling direction, CUSTODY compensates by generating the thrill and tension by contemplating danger in extreme propinquity when Julien is obligated to spend time with Antoine, and it soon dawns on audience that what a monster the seemingly benevolent father is. Although he never lays a finger on Julien, but the sheer emotional abuse he unleashes on his prepubescent son is so staggering and deeply unnerving, praise be Gioria, a wunderkind who could withhold such a fusillade of hectoring, coaxing and threatening, then responses with utterly stunning reaction shots, so much so that viewers might seriously concern about his traumatized mentality"

read my full review on my blog: cinema omnivore, thanks