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Reviews
Irish Wish (2024)
Very rough watch
I'm a big fan of so-bad-they're-good chickflicks, but this was just a very rough watch. This movie sets a "you may not need what you think you need" story against the backdrop of a gorgeous Irish landscape, which to be fair is a pretty good premise. However, the movie drops the ball pretty much immediately and is a slog to watch.
For starters, the acting is very stilted and dialogue feels weird and unnatural. The only one who exudes any charisma at all is Ed Speleers, but even he struggles to make the script sound like sentences actual people would say.
Story-wise, the movie is especially strange. There seem to be a bunch of storylines that kind of come out of the blue and, in particular, set-ups that go nowhere and "pay-offs" that have never seemed to be set-up.
To give a small example from the very beginning of the movie: The main characters mother is the principal of a highschool and, during a phone conversation, makes a big deal out of her keyboard not working properly when trying to order toilet paper. You'd think this sets up some sort of joke about a ton of toilet paper accidentally being ordered, but no. This was the "joke". The key of her keyboard was stuck.
Another example is at a rehearsal diner, where family decides to quiz the happy couple. The question for the main character is where their proposal was, which WE as an audience know she doesn't know because of the wish, but literally who shows up to a wedding with a quiz that contains this question? How is this something actual humans would ask in that setting?
A particularly weird twist is at the very end, where it's revealed that the main character didn't just edit, but secretly wrote the book of her famous author fiancé. Why? This isn't set up at all and it's completely unnecessary for the "lesson" she's supposed to learn. Just have her decide she doesn't want to be an editor anymore and wants to go write her own book. Like, why make this story any more complicated?
Finally, Ireland is presented as some sort of cartoonish hamlet where everyone knows everyone and locals spend their weekdays drinking Guinness and dancing a jig to live music in the local pub as it storms outside, which I'm sure offends some Irish person somewhere. Even though it's established that the main love interest has spent years travelling abroad, people in Ireland recognize him and lend him their car because "he used to come here for holidays when he was a kid", which is just hilariously stupid.
All in all, this feels like it was written by AI, acted by robots and shouldn't even be watched ironically.
Happy Single (2023)
Predictable romcom with an unlikeable main character
Happy Single lies in that unfortunate zone where it's not a good film, but also not bad enough to laugh at or hatewatch. It checks all the boxes of a romcom, the acting is passable and you'll find an occasional shred of humor. Overall, however, the main story thread is bland and the film doesn't lean into the absurd enough to become genuinely funny. It's a bummer because you can see a good sense of humor shining through the cracks.
The biggest issue, I'd say, is the main character herself, Molly. She's horribly unlikeable and while she could have worked as satire of self-obsessed millenials, it's abundantly clear that we're supposed to root for her as some sort of anti-hero. It's also difficult to buy into the relationship between Molly and her main love interest, Otis. Otis is a shredded, intelligent, empathic and charismatic chad who's single in his 30's (for reasons outside his control, obviously) and who's totally into Molly for...reasons. Maybe if the actors had great chemistry they could've sold this script, but they don't so the entire thing is really difficult to buy into.
In summary, this isn't the worst Dutch movie ever made, but it's also definitely not good enough to recommend you watching it.
Fijn weekend (2023)
A decent idea executed poorly
Fijn weekend sets itself apart from most other Dutch movies by not being particularly bad, but that doesn't do it any service. It's neither entertaining to watch seriously nor ironically and just kind of end up being a whole bunch of potential that fails to stick the landing.
Let's start with the positives. The premise of the movie is actually pretty interesting. A tightly knit group of friends travels to a French chateau where a now-deceased friend would hold a yearly minigame competition. As they plan to hold one last competition before scattering his ashes, the deceased friends ex shows up with a new fling who shakes up the groups already wobbly dynamics. There's a lot of potential for humor, drama and heart here, and the cast does a pretty great job acting-wise. They could have definitely pulled this off.
Notice I said could, because unfortunately the writing ends up being abysmal. There's way too much going on in terms of emotions and group dynamics and the movie somehow manages to both have dialogue that's incredibly clunky and on the nose, as well as being very difficult to follow. You'll spend a big portion of the movie trying to figure out how everyone is related and what's going on. Storybeats come out of absolutely nowhere and some character arcs just kind of pop up and are never resolved. Not that you really care by the end, because most characters are horrible people that are difficult to sympathize with. The movie sort of hints that it's their underlying grief that causes this, and tries to use it in the big finale, but does way too little to earn this.
I wish I could say this would have been a great story if it had had more breathing room, for example by being a series. Despite how bloated it is, however, this movie wastes so much time on things like an unnecessarily long montage and sex scenes that go nowhere. I'm sure there are writers out there who could have made it work, but these guys just weren't them.
Unlike most other Dutch movies, this movie tries really hard. I appreciate and respect that, but when the writing isn't there, the end result comes off as pretentious.
A California Christmas (2020)
A California disappointment
Netflix Cristmas specials are one of my guilty pleasures and honestly I don't even expect anything but the same generic plot beats poured into a slightly new mold and sprinkled with some distinguishing elements. A California Christmas still managed to disappoint. It's hard to pinpoint exactly why, but if I had to guess it's that the story is just so half-assed and makes so little sense that I couldn't enjoy it. To give a few examples of plotholes and weird details:
-Callie is suspicious about Joseph because he's too attractive to be a farmhand, but she's clearly a well groomed, attractive actress herself
-Callies family has owned the land and farmhouse for generations. Exactly what are these mysterious bills that she can't pay for and why are they completely evicted when she doesn't pay them? It can't be rent.
-Hannah finds out pretty much straight away that Joseph isn't the farmhand and never bring it up until it's revealed at the end.
-The mother doesn't instantly realize that Joseph is not Hispanic and a completely different man than the man she hired.
-The movie takes place in a small village. Manny is a local recognized by several people, among who Connor. Callies family is well established and known in the village. How did no one from Callies family already know the real Manny to begin with?
-That small handfull of grapevines on the land will never produce enough money to make Callies financial problems go away. Newly planted grapevines would take years to become useful and worth money.
-Callies opinion of Joseph does a full 180 after he started a barfight with Connor she never asked for because reasons.
-Why does the "company" have to buy this particular bit of land instead of literally any other patch of land in the open, barren landscape that is portayed?
Honestly it's hard to root for any of the 2 leads in general. Callie is presented as some sort of hard-working bossbabe who guards her farm with a shotgun like she's some sort of cartoon. In actuality, she doesn't work towards any permanent solution for her financial problems and stubbornly refuses to sell the farm to the point where she, her young sister and terminally ill mother would've absolutely been kicked onto the streets if it wasn't for a deus ex machina. She has no character growth other than going from hating Joseph to having the hots for him.
Joseph supposedly learns the merits of rural life and working hard, but for all the things he's portayed as, he's never actually portrayed as lazy. This means that his only actual character growth is realizing he likes menial labour and random hot farm girl. Yay for him, I guess.
The only redeeming quality of this film is the bromance between Manny and Leo, but that doesn't make it worth watching.