Flanders' most decorated writer of the last 30 years that wears funny glasses Tom Lanoye finally made his point about his troubled youth as a butcher boy and all its implications with 'Sprakeloos' (Speechless) in 2010. The novel was an ode to his parents and his mom in particular, the people of his hometown Saint-Nicholas, and a lust for life. An ode with room for honest shame, self-reflection and black humour. You'd think it'd be an excellent framework for – only – the second adaption of Lanoye's work, after 1996's 'Alles Moet Weg' (Everything Must Go).
'Smoorverlief' director Hilde van Mieghem takes the helm of this adaptation, with Stany Crets and Marie Vinck as its most familiar faces. Just like Van Mieghem's last movie(s), it's an excellent romp to play bad trope bingo with:
A well-executed clichéd movie with heart can taste just as sweet. This is not that kind of movie, except for one good scene that you'll have to wait almost ninety minutes for. The only way to enjoy this uninspired wreck is to try and laugh at it. Counting how many times Stany Crets has the same stupid look after hearing, seeing, smelling or feeling something is what kept me going, but I'm sure there's many more ways. Thanks Stany, or I'd have slept through your movie.
No one can take away Lanoye's Gouden Uil Publieksprijs, but this surely this movie has got to hurt.
★
'Smoorverlief' director Hilde van Mieghem takes the helm of this adaptation, with Stany Crets and Marie Vinck as its most familiar faces. Just like Van Mieghem's last movie(s), it's an excellent romp to play bad trope bingo with:
- "local dialect" - A child dies suddenly and all shall cry - FLASHBACK - Close-ups! - Emotions! - The long lost son - An angry man needs a drink at the bar - Piano ballads work for those tears - Subplots that are forgotten the moment they begin - Reaction shots of everyone to everything - The past has its own camera filter - "Look, I'm acting!" - Now I talk like this, then I'll talk like that - Forgotten characters - Make-up only works put on in kilos - All health care professionals are demons - Story rhymes
A well-executed clichéd movie with heart can taste just as sweet. This is not that kind of movie, except for one good scene that you'll have to wait almost ninety minutes for. The only way to enjoy this uninspired wreck is to try and laugh at it. Counting how many times Stany Crets has the same stupid look after hearing, seeing, smelling or feeling something is what kept me going, but I'm sure there's many more ways. Thanks Stany, or I'd have slept through your movie.
No one can take away Lanoye's Gouden Uil Publieksprijs, but this surely this movie has got to hurt.
★
