Napa Sonoma Wine Country Film Festival 2008 : Ben X

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Ben X

2007

Categories: Featured, World Cinema

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Run time: 90 min. | Belgium

It's All in the Game --

Where does a troubled young teenager go to escape his seemingly miserable everyday existence and find a place of empowerment and adventure? Ben, a severely withdrawn, possibly autistic teen never speaks, except to save to his long-suffering, divorced mother and his little brother. Forced to attend the regular high school his father insisted on, Ben gets high grades, but is mercilessly bullied and viewed as a freak by his classmates. Ben's only solace is the time spent playing sword-and-sorcery video game “Overlord,” where he can be the fearless hero slaying foes left and right, as he recasts his tormentors at school as videogame combatants. Tellingly, the closest thing Ben has to a friendship is with “Scarlite,” a female online gamer he's never met.

One day, Ben is horrendously humiliated at school and unable to bring himself to tell mom or school authorities what happened, he seems to be edging toward either violent revenge or suicide, or simply disappearing for keeps into his fantasy world. Can there be a happy ending when fantasy must not only defeat but meet reality?

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