Writing a script that truly captures the emotions and experiences of a 4-year-old child is a hard task when most of us barely remember those years.

Find a child actress who can actually portray the deep emotions of a child attempting to understand the death of a parent is even harder.

Incredibly, Jacques Doillon's film Ponette does it all with heartbreaking realism.

Ponette (Victoire Thivisol) is a young girl who has just lost her mother in a car accident.

While her father starts his new job, she moves in with her Aunt Claire (Claire Nebout) and two cousins, Matiaz (Matiaz Bureau Caton) and Delphine (Delphine Schlitz).

Aunt Claire attempts to explain life and death through stories of Jesus, and Ponette struggles through issues of religion in her effort to find her mother, if not in this world, then in communication with the next.

As the children are sent off to boarding school, Ponette tries to deal with her grief and comes to some understanding through the school children's interpretations of death.

When Thivisol pouts and her eyes well up with tears, it is hard to believe the story is not actually happening to her in real life.

When I think of four-year-olds acting, I usually think of the easy two or three liners the Olsen twins would spout out on Full House.

Thivisol carries all 90 minutes of the film, showing more real, raw emotion than most respected adult actors today.

Keep in mind, Thivisol is not an older child actress playing a younger one.

Like the character, she was four years old at the time it was filmed.

Doillon's realistic portrayal of children's conversations on playgrounds at school seems surprisingly in touch with the adolescent mind.

Ponette has conversations on why Catholics are different from Jews, how eating certain candy makes you fall in love forever, and how you can make God listen to you by going through several tests, which involve braving the obstacles of the playground.

She also endeavors to understand why neither God nor her mother will respond to her even when she prays to them.

Doillon's depicts the young mind's confusion between a literal world and a figurative one, a time when a stuffed animal is not just fabric stuffed with cotton, but a best friend.

But, it is Thivisol who brings Doillon's vision to life.

You might also recognize her from the 2002 U.S. release Chocolat.

Had this film been released in U.S. theaters, she would have been the youngest person ever to receive an Oscar.

Yes, this film is in French and has subtitles, but it's worth the extra effort.

Ponette is a heartbreaking but endearing piece of brilliance.