Synopsis
The Eighth Day (Le Huitième Jour, 1996) is a Belgian drama by Jaco Van Dormael that you can watch online on iFILM. Harry is a slick motivational trainer whose private life has collapsed: his wife has left, he keeps failing his kids, and his days have shrunk to schedules and motorway lanes.
One night on an empty road he nearly runs over Georges, played by Pascal Duquenne — a young man with Down syndrome who has fled his institution because he's the one resident nobody came to collect. Harry tries to shake him off; Georges simply refuses to let his new friend go. What grows between them is an odd, stubborn friendship in which a burned-out, calculating man relearns the simplest things from someone the world is used to overlooking.
Van Dormael sidesteps the pity trap — there's humour here, dream sequences and music, a character rather than a diagnosis. Duquenne plays Georges from the inside, and his pairing with Daniel Auteuil took the Best Actor prize at Cannes for both men. It's one for viewers who like French-language drama about human warmth with no sugar. Stream The Eighth Day (1996) online on iFILM.
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