French Toast

This is like a really bad soap opera with terrible acting. Also full of stupid French clichés and sappy music. Dialogues are insipid. Really nothing to save it. Avoid wasting your time!

Romantic comedies aren't supposed to be stellar narratives or strong on character development, but sometimes, they are superb on all fronts. Not French Toast, despite some decent acting, cinematography, and direction. The trouble lay in the writing, especially the climactic scene, which left us confused. The music was frequently intrusive and one or two of the characters were really too cliched to care about. Interestingly, for a film set in 1980s South Africa, there was not a single person of colour in the cast. All that said, I appreciated being able to hear Afrikaans in a film--a comparatively very rare experience.

My wife and I really enjoyed this fun, romantic movie. I loved the cinematography and vistas.

Highly recommended.

I was a bit skeptical when I heard the Afrikaner but I plowed through... The main actress was pretty and made me want to watch further. I hoped that her journey would be interesting. I ignored the quality of the acting which is... uneven...? Or is that too generous? I also ignored the bad music... small budget movies usually cannot afford good soundtracks... ...the scenes shot in South Africa are set on the family farm so... ok... no black people. But then she gets to Paris and no brown or black people in the streets or in the subway? Really? That's when I decided to stop the movie. The chemistry wasn't there & white washing killed it for me. Don't get me wrong I skipped around to the end because I am a sucker for happy endings (no matter how bleached out the movie is) but there was just too much bad to make up for the good... in my humble opinion.

Hmmm... there are some real strengths in this caper; mostly a good storyline, scenery of south africa and of paris. some fun moments, as Lisa and JeanPierre romp around town. there are also some large plot holes... the odds of the huge coincidences that occur. i don't want to get too specific to spoil any surprises, but by the end, its a little much. people in the film fall for each other very quickly. this feels like the basic premise of real family secrets and having unknown siblings in other countries really is someone's own story. but then they embellished on the details. and there are some very confusing moments. I had to turn on subtitles, since they speak afrikaans, english, and french. Lots of krugers in the credits.... seems to be a family project. writer, director, cast, even the producers. on netflix, so i also used rewind a couple times. it's mostly good, but has some weaknesses. like any film, i guess.