‘When It Melts’ Review: Childhood Trauma is Inescapable in a Well-Crafted But Bottomlessly Bleak Debut

A couple of times over in “When It Melts,” the directorial debut of Belgian actor Veerle Baetens, Eva, played as a morose, withdrawn adult by Charlotte De Bruyne, looks at a photograph of herself as a 13-year-old. In the picture, child-Eva (Sundance prizewinner Rosa Marchant) is grinning a lopsided, optimistic tomboy grin, unaware of the violent end of innocence lying in wait for her. The space between these two Evas — a vast gulf not just temporal but scarringly psychological — is territory painstakingly mapped out by Baetens, whose grip on the tone of gathering dread is sure, until it… Read Full Article