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Faithfully Yours follows two middle-aged friends, Bodil (Bracha van Doesburgh) and Isabel (Elise Schaap) who use each other as alibis to sneak off and enjoy extramarital affairs.

The film opens with Bodil and Isabel meeting up at a train station in the Netherlands to go on a weekend trip to Ostend, a Belgian seaside resort. They've agreed to use each other as alibis so that their husbands won't find out about their cheating. Isabel's hubby, a depressed, forlorn, very needy writer, has placed a tracker on her phone, so there's a lot of scheming to make sure he does not know where she's really going.

As soon as they hit town they go their separate ways. Bodil, a family court judge and mom, hooks up with a young, handsome professor from the local university who is an expert on - irony of ironies - lying. Clearly she should know better.

Fortyish Isabel puts on her glitter makeup goes to a sleazy nightclub where she does drugs, hands over a huge cash payment to an unidentified man, and makes out with a young woman. Later that night, Isabel goes missing.

And that's when the planning and web of lies unravels. The next day Bodil discovers the scene of a violent, bloody struggle at her beach house. She reluctantly calls the police and then lies about pretty much everything else.

But the Belgian police are not exactly Lieutenant Colombos. The two women detectives take a quite passive approach to their sleuthing. The attitude seems to be, "Yeah, sure that makes sense." The biggest admonition is not to leave Belgium.

In fact pretty much every character in this movie is a 1 on the 1 to 10 passive to aggressive scale. No one seems especially troubled by any startling reveal, or strange behavior. Bodil's hubby: Oh, you've had 10 or 12 lovers at the beach house? I'm down with that. I enjoy the videos. Just don't drift too far away from me. A huge Irish Wolfhound runs up to an elderly man almost knocking him over and puts his bloody paws all over the guy's white suit? Bodil just looks slightly quizzical and goes on her way. Isabel's husband tries to commit suicide by taking a barrel full of pills and is near death? Bodil's husband: let's not bother with emergency services. He'll be OK. Bodil discovers there has been a violent crime, maybe murder / hit job at her home? Oh, I'll just spend another few days here, alone. None of the characters are likable, several are detestable.

Maybe this passivity and blind acceptance of the outrageous is a Dutch / Belgian thing, but American audiences will find it hard to fathom. And in this era of culture wars, the disdain shown to men will be especially jarring. The two male leads are ineffectual beta-males in the extreme. The five women, in their way, are the only competent ones.

Add to that a number of implausibilities - e.g., a child having the password to his dad's computer which is loaded with disturbing material - and plot holes, then mix with a kettle full of red herrings, and you get a sadly disappointing movie.

As for the ending, well, like the rest of the film, pretty far fetched. It's more or less wrapped up in a two minute conversation / exposition scene outside the beach house and then a ludicrous airport scene. I give it points for the premise, but negative points for execution. Hitchcock it is not.

Positive surprise from a Dutch movie production. Strong characters, with a complex psychological background that makes it believable that they do what they do. Bracha delivers a top performance, and Elise is good as usual.

We couldn't see any surreal plotholes or silliness from the main character. Under normal circumstances people may choose differently, but here its not clear whom to trust. The idea that a judge would fall through the cracks and find herself in a position of suspicion makes it extra interesting.

This movie maintained a constant tension of "what will happen next?". While some critics called it painfully slow we didn't experience that at all. Instead, it's never clear what will happen next or how the story will end. This kept us hooked in.

The end isnt your typical ending, which is something I love to see, but its wrap up was very brief and could have used an extra scene or two. Overall enjoyed a good movie night!

.......mostly bland and boring (mildly erotic)thriller - including the fact that it is neither erotic nor a thriller.

By the time it all ends, you are likely to have (a) kinda guessed what was coming and (b) pretty much lost interest

Two friends take a weekend vacation - plan being for one (the heroine) to act as an alibi for the other (gf) to go have a sexy time out with her sex buddy/lover, or so it seems.

Gf disappears, a dead body is found, heroine is forced to lie to everyone, police suspect her, blah blah blah....and obviously there are twists and turns, red herrings, everyone has something to hide ... all the usual tropes.... There are some heated encounters, some lesbian montages but no one really gets naked and it's all pretty bland and dull and a slow burn.... Like a wokier, wonkier version of Basic Instinct in a post me too world that is surely heading for a climate meltdown, with nothing that viewers can sink their teeth into.

Everyone goes around looking as guilty as hell, and as the movie miserably drags itself over the finish lining with the expected (gasp!) twist ending, you can't but help wonder what was the point of all this trouble, really??? And.....did I just waste 90m ??

So.....like I said at the beginning be warned .....sadly the movie is not what it seems or aspires to be......

The premise is interesting - two women using each other as an alibi and then things go wrong. There are a few unreasonable parts of the movie which don't make sense, as other reviewers have said. And yes, I agree, the ending was ridiculous. The acting is not good.

However, I was genuinely entertained. I kept trying to figure out what was happening and who was the bad guy. The movie gets points for that - it's not obvious who the bad guy is, and really, depending on how you define "bad guy," it really gets iffy.

Speaking of which, the characters aren't likable. None of them. So really, the big positives here are story and mystery. And that part was done very well.

And I don't mean just the two of the main characters, but literally everyone - from all of the characters to writers and director.

No one acts in their best interest, and it can't even be explained away as panic, as everyone is calm, just irrational.

For instance, a character lies to the police about something that the police wouldn't really care about, but - for NO reason whatsoever - makes sure to tell the truth to another character who would be upset about it.

Another character pulls an extremely risky and unnecessary stunt in a situation that could have been handled in thousand different ways and each one of them would've made more sense.

Oh, and when it comes to police, nothing about their investigation makes any sense. It feels like the writers asked a six-year-old what they imagine a police investigation looks like, and they actually put it that way in a script.

However, my "favorite" parts were two lame red herrings; one of which is explained away in a pretty silly manner and another one is forgotten as soon as it happens. Can't say much without spoiling it but IF (for whatever reason) you decide to watch it, it will leave you wondering: "What the hell was the meaning of that peculiar detail if it's never going to be mentioned again?"

I feel like I could go on and on about it, and still wouldn't be able to cover all the messy parts of the plot. Pacing which is extremely off and wooden acting do not help. Just avoid it.