According to Belgian first-time director Patrice Toye, the adolescent title character in the affecting realist drama Rosie (subtitled The Devil In My Head) was inspired in part by Sissy Spacek in Terrence Malick's Badlands, which she claims to have seen "hundreds of times." But rather than try to mimic Malick's lyrical touch, Toye heightens the disparity between the mirthless gray haze of working-class Antwerp and the girl's dreamy disconnection from it, which naturally leads her into trouble. Told in a rigorous documentary style reminiscent of countrymen Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne (La Promesse, Rosetta), Rosie relies on caught observations to flesh out a grim coming-of-age story about repressed desire and family secrets. The entire film hinges on newcomer Aranka Coppens, whose naturalistic turn deflects easy sympathy and holds long after Toye's script is overcome by contrivances. Living with her lonely single mother (Sara de Roo) in a nondescript apartment building, Coppens spends her afternoons wandering through the city's post-industrial landscape, with occasional stops to read passages from a tawdry adult romance novel. With her mother courting a parade of suitors and her shady, gambling-addicted uncle (Frank Vercruyssen) in town for an indefinite stay, she seeks companionship in a mysterious blond-haired boy she meets on the bus. Though it never approaches the social relevance or psychological complexity of a Dardenne Brothers film, Rosie has a genuine feeling for the impulsiveness and sensitivity of youth; in one exemplary sequence, Coppens plucks a crying baby out of a stroller and attempts to mother it for a day. It's unfortunate that her seemingly random behavior is reigned in by a script that contorts plausibility for a couple of third-act twists, but by then, Coppens' gritty, tough-minded performance has left an indelible mark.