Love Belongs to Everyone
Love Belongs to Everyone (original Dutch title: Dennis van Rita, literally Dennis from Rita) is a 2006 Flemish film directed by Hilde Van Mieghem and written by Hugo Van Laere. Starring Els Dottermans, Matthias Schoenaerts and Veerle Baetens.
Plot
Dennis (Matthias Schoenaerts) is 26 years old but has the mind of a child. He is obsessed with trains and train schedules. His mother Rita (Els Dottermans) is filled with joy when Dennis returns from prison after serving a sentence for the alleged rape of an underage girl. The neighborhood, however, is not happy with Dennis’ homecoming especially Barbara (Veerle Baetens).
After Dennis masturbates at the playground – with his pants on – Rita and his father André (Damiaan De Schrijver) decide to keep him inside. However, when Rita is at her work, André is watching Dennis but falls asleeps. In this timeframe, Dennis goes outside to see the trains but does not return. Later on the evening, the police brings them a visit telling Dennis raped a woman (Maaike Neuville). Dennis is found in a train station.
Dennis is being interrogated by an alienist. He concludes there is no proper psychiatric institution where Dennis can be handled, so he is sent to jail whilst he is in custody. There he is frequently seriously beaten up and pestered. The prison officers do not take action when this happens and are even amused to see the fights. These harassments lead to a failed suicide attempt.
Rita contacts Thomas (Tom Van Dyck), a lawyer who coincidentally happens to be the new boyfriend of Barbara. A medical examination proved the girl was indeed raped by Dennis. Thomas thinks Dennis does not belong in prison but must be sent to a psychiatric institution and gives his services for free. So he must convince the judge. Barbara changes her mind after a quarrel with Thomas. She initially hoped Rita and her family would move or Dennis is locked up forever, but never realized Dennis does need professional help.
They try to convince the government with a petition and are able to get talktime in a famous Belgian debate television show. Some days later, Rita gets a letter from a psychiatric institution which will give Dennis shelter. There, Dennis tells the girl took him to an abandoned place as she claimed to know all about trains and schedules. She told she was cold so he gave her his sweater. Next, she stroked multiple times on his belly. He told her she must not do that as it is forbidden. As she kept going on and looked at him very nicely, he pushed the girl away. She hit a pillar and became unconscious. Dennis thought she was dead and removed the sweater. Thereby he felt her warm belly which eventually lead to the raping.
The trial and judgment are not revealed.
Principal cast
- Els Dottermans as Rita
- Matthias Schoenaerts as Dennis
- Veerle Baetens as Barbara
- Damiaan De Schrijver
- Hans de Munter as psychiater
- Rudolph Segers as inmate
- Tom Van Dyck