User reviews

I'm watching the film as I'm writing this review. At the same time I am also reading other user reviews. And I must say that I do agree with a lot that's said in the other reviews, but also disagree with some.

First, the story is quite shallow. I must say that I don't like stories that build on exceptional situations like borderline syndrome, because the effect of that is that there's no real explanation for (in this case) Reza's behaviour. She behaves in a strange way and the viewer needs to have some sort of an explanation for that, which the story doesn't give you. But at the same time, Angela Schijf is brilliant in the way she acts. You can see that she really tries to make the most out of this terrible script. Her acting is very convincing, which is a real achievement.

Eric's behaviour is strange in a way too. Eric only reacts with surprise and disgust. But he never tries to find out more about her and never tries to help her. He says "it's killing me too", but you don't see that in the story. Eric is more like a spectator. He writes about Reza, but we never get to know what he's written. And to make it even worse, he also is the narrator of the story and being the story-teller he has to pronounce some pathetic lines. The entire film consists of flash-backs while he's telling the story to (again) a new girlfriend, Silke. The new girlfriend, beautiful as she may be, is completely useless in the story. So also this actor, Anthony Kamerling, is handicapped with a very bad script. He also makes the best of it and acts very very well. But the audience will never feel compassion or even understanding for this character. He's just annoying.

Third, I want to mention Fraser, Eric's friend. He has to pronounce such terrible lines that it's astonishing that Beau van Erven Dorens succeeds in making them sound to convincing.

Some of the bad aspects of this film are so typically Dutch. In Dutch films dating from before (say) 2003, the sound is very bad. It sounds like the actors have their heads in a bucket. Sometimes you can hear the acoustic qualities of the room they're in, sometimes you don't. Sometimes a living room sounds like a bathroom, sometimes a bathroom sounds as acoustically dead as a garden. Sometimes the sound is harsh, sometimes flat, but mostly hard to hear or understand. About the visual quality: although the images are beautiful, the image quality is bad. Colours are flat or washed out, in dark scenes there's a lot of noise, it's never really crisp or sharp.

The most annoying thing in my opinion is the sex. There's so much nudity in this film, sex is so important in the story and both Angela Schijf and Anthony Kamerling have such beautiful bodies that you would expect the film to be (at least) a little bit sexy. But it isn't. None of the nude scenes have an erotic quality to them and with such beautiful people it must have been really hard to make it this un-sexy.

In short: brilliant acting in a terrible picture. A complete waste of talent.

So I went to see the movie "Ik ook van jou". I thought it was quite nice. The story unfolds rather jerky here and there, but I think Ruud van Hemert (the director) has a great eye for pictures. Some of the camerawork and lighting is really awesome.

But what surprised me most was the use of music composed by the collective "Normally Invisible": The intro-sequence was rather shocking and unconventional, then it switches over to 'standard' John Williams type of scoring. Then it reveals more depth to the characters as the story moves along. The composers are obviously not afraid of using breakbeats, dark ambient spheres, experimental sound design and romantic 'classic' scoring.

One of the most impressive scenes was Rezas birthday party where the music really hits you as it morphs from hectic drum'n'bass/metal to transparent sounddesign ending in a rather 'esoteric' sphere... just amazing!

I can only say that these guys know what they are doing. Keep an eye out for "Normally Invisible" as they seem to perform their stuff live as well....

Oh yeah, and go see the movie! (preferrably in a theatre with good sound)

Wow, A very good movie!!! The movie may start a little slow but when the story about the impossible love between Reza and Eric starts you just get suck in sooo deep, you won't be able to get your eyes from the screen!!!

See it! Angela Schijf is very good! The movie about Reza's twisted character and the love Eric feels for her, the troubles that comes with it and the love he gets from it, it's amazing!

I tried to see this movie on the first night showing. The show in the city I live in was sold out. "This must be really something", I thought. I now expect that most people leaving the theater that night must have had the same though as I have now, after seeing the movie on DVD: "highly overrated; not living up to it's expectations". I didn't read the book, have to be honest about that. From what I've read, the book's author, Mr Giphart, wasn't really pleased with the movie either. Some remarks: - the plot is too clear; I knew how it would end before the movie was half on it's way - not very well acting from Ms Schijf and Mr Kamerling. The latter is also the narrator and I'm not sure whether it's intended this way, but he's reading lines and that just sounds horrible. The small part of Mr Van Erven Dorens is ok. He's not that good of an actor, but he plays an over the top student-like ("studentikoos" in Dutch) student, in which he succeeds to make him student-like...quite realistic whether you like it or not.

I wouldn't advise this movie to my friends; if it is on tv and you're sure there's nothing else on...well, it's ok to watch it, I guess. Nothing more, nothing less. A 4,5 out of 10

From 2002 on Dutch cinema finally got better again. This movie is still part- and a schoolbook example of the bad period of Dutch cinema.

The story is needlessly told in flashback style. All of the 'present' sequences set in France are completely redundant and add nothing to the story, emotions or power. For some reason European filmmakers often find it necessary to tell the story not chronological. I never understood why, or what the appeal of it is.

The story self also isn't exactly the greatest. It isn't always clear were the movie is trying to go to and what it tries to tell. The story of a young unexperienced boy falling in love with a wild young girl, who later turns out to be quite psychotic might sound good enough on paper and even shows some parallels to Paul Verhoeven's "Turks fruit", to which this movie often was compared to before and at the time of its release. However the end result is far from comparable. The story fails to capture the right emotions, which is also due to the unimaginative performances from the actors. The way the story is told also makes the movie far from always interesting or compelling. I lost interest for this movie at about 40 minutes through the movie.

At the time this movie was made, both Antonie Kamerling and Angela Schijf were promising rising stars, with great potential and ambitions but both their careers have pretty much dried up by now. Angela Schijf seems to give her family more attention than her career (that is not a bad thing of course), while Antonie Kamerling tried to start a career in Hollywood. He never got any further than playing some small bit parts in 2 Renny Harlin flops. To be honest I'm not surprised. It's not that he is a bad actor and he certainly has got the right looks but his English just isn't good enough, to put it mildly. Just listen to him speaking English in the beginning of this movie and you'll understand what I mean. They are really not bad actors but for some reason it doesn't show in this movie. It's probably also due to the poor dialog. I still kind of liked Beau van Erven Dorens. He's been criticized a lot but his acting seems very natural. He always keeps the characters close to who he self is.

It by no means is one of the worst movies ever made but it's not exactly one I would recommend either. Bad and uninteresting storytelling makes this a bad movie.

4/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Yesterday was one of those days we decided to go to the movies. We picked "Ik ook van Jou" more or less at random, but we were interested to see the state of current Dutch filmmaking.

The film is based on a book by Ronald Giphart, and I must confess straight away that he is not exactly one of my favorites. The film features actors that are best known in the netherlands for their appearances in soap-operas and/or afternoon talk shows. At least one of them (Kamerling) has done some fairly decent stuff after leaving the soap world. So we decided to give this movie the benefit of the doubt.

And what a mistake that was. This movie fails on all fronts. Bad acting (the best performance is actually by a guinea pig, which very convincingly pretends to be dead). Flat, uninteresting story with unexplained and uninteresting sidelines (Why france? Why tell the story to a girl from Uganda?) Mistakes (black people dont have to use sunscreen, as far as I know, and heating systems in the Netherlands do not produce clouds of steam like in New York, even if this looks great on film, people do not wear T-shirts outside on new years eve in northern Europe). There's one funny moment which involves two little dogs, and that's it.

So that's what I think, but more importantly, it seemed that none of the people leaving the movie theater afterwards had enjoyed it. I overheard one of them saying that he was extremely disappointed, because he liked the book so much. I did not read the book, but my advice would have to be: read the book, don't see the film.

This movie was special to me cause it also was about personality disorder and during that time I was tested about it . It is a story about a destructive love , but also about Borderline cause Reza in this movie is a Borderliner . This story is based on a book of a Dutch writer and has the same title but the movie is a lot changed from the book . It is Angela Schijf first movie role and she really plays Reza well

The movie is about the love between Eric and Reza . They meet in a short time and fall in love . After a while their relationship changes and he founds out Reza is different then other girls . Reza is selfdestructive and hangs on to Eric like he is her only hope .

Eric is terrified by that , cause he loves her but doesn't understand her moodswings , her outbursts and her harming herself . Reza truly loves him but doesn't know how to handle it and starts claiming him more , which drives them only further apart .

This movie was good cause it was about Borderline and made the others that watched the movie more understandable to it . And it is also about a love that is going wrong because they both couldn't deal with it .

If you ever going go to watch this movie be sure to take tissues with you cause it will is surely going to make you cry.

Actually I'm still in doubt if there's anything about this movie I like. As for the story: unrealistic and very exaggerated. The acting was too bad in my opinion. Not very likely that Antonie Kamerling will get a Rutger Hauer status. Some folks will expect it anyway. First let him work on his English pronunciation. If you watch the 'trip' to Paris of these actors (DVD-extra) you will most likely want to trow up. Advice to Beau Dorens: stop your acting career, you'll never get there... To the 2 main 'actors': grow up, please. Being generous, I'd give it 4 out of 10.

this movie was so incredibly bad. i haven't read the book, but i assume it was probably very good, as giphart usually is a great writer... but this movie... there was not one single highlight. the storyline was badly laid out, none of the characters had any depth whatsoever. all reza was, was insanity and sex. she shows some emotion but there isn't any depth to the emotion...

there seems to be no connections between events, it's all so jaggedly put together. maybe some good acting could have balanced out the bad storyline, but unfortunately the actors were horrible as well. antonie kamerling's narration sounded like he was doing an imitation of bert (bert & ernie) from sesame street!! angela schijf had her alright moments, but overall she was just over-acting. which can be said also for beau whatever-his-last-name-is.

every so often the audience was confronted with 'symbolic' changes in the scenery ( ie lack of color after the relationship with reza is over, the dead guinea pig) that are so painfully obvious. this movie is trying to be artsy and intelligent when it simply isnt capable of being so.

they could have done something great with the story... too bad they f*ck*d it up so thoroughly!!

As a fan of author Gipharts lightheaded and humorous books (of which Ik Ook van Jou is not the best one), I was looking forward to see this film. I didn't catch it in cinema though, and after seeing it on to tv I'm terribly happy I resisted buying it on video. Out of a good book, they managed to make one of the worst movies in Dutch film history. All the good parts have been left out, the story is changed, not to its benefits. All humour has been cut out. What's left is a bad-acted, over dramatic, non-consistent film that I do not want to watch again ever.

I condolate Giphart with this result, and am happy that Robbert Jan Westdijk did a hell of a better job on Giphart's topper Phileine zegt Sorry. Go see that one!

Ik ook van Jou is an incredible love story, a sad one, but therefore maybe even better than a happy one.

This story really gets to you, by the end of the movie you can't help but wonder, what if it were my life...

Ik ook van Jou is originally a book by the great Dutch author Ronald Giphart. He's a man who really knows what his audience wants to read. Most of his books are about sexuality, sensuality, love passion and pain all blended together in perfect written books.

Ik ook van Jou is one of his best books (well that's my opinion anyway) and I was very excited when they decided to do a movie about it. The movie is everything what Giphart stands for, love, passion, pain, lust and, of course, sex....and a lot of it, but the movie is shot in a way that the sex parts are actually SEXY, and every time it's used in the right place, the right time.

The actors are wonderful. They act much better then I expected them to, but Angela Schijf and Antonie Kamerling are wonderful together, there's "real" chemistry flickering in their eyes. And especially good work from Beau van Erven-Doorens who made his debut in this movie. (He even gained almost 28 pounds for his part as Frazer, if that isn't dedication....)

If you've got the chance, go see it. It's one of the best Dutch productions I've ever seen. And the critics are right, it's kind of like Turks Fruit...only better.

They said it would be a film greater than Turks Fruit. How dare

they? It's not even 10% of this classic. Bad acting. The only character i felt sympathy for was the one

played by Angela Schijf. Her acting was the best in the whole film. The story could've been interesting, but it wasn't. Some scenes were very beautiful filmed (lights and camera), (the

opening scene for example), but the bad acting made the magic

disappear.

I really don't understand why so many people voted this film so

good.

I have a different opinion about this film. People above me say it's extremely exaggerated. I can tell you this film does not go halfway of what people with Borderline experience in their heads. Just because this already is hard to understand, because of it's outrageousness, because of the unbelievable ways a Borderline-mind works, this film does not go any deeper than this. The way a Borderliner thinks and feels is way beyond human understanding. Unless you have Borderline, or you live with somebody who has it, you will never be able to comprehend this... I have seen this film twice now, and still know for sure, that it is only half of what it should be...

If this was the best dutch cinema had to offer these years, my worst fears have come true. I have NEVER, even in dutch movies, seen worse acting. I couldn't get myself to watch it for more than 40 minutes, so if that's the cause of me missing the genius, so be it.

When "Ik ook van jou" was released on dvd, I ran to the videostore to rent it. Having read the book by Ronald Giphart (I've read all of his books) I really wanted to see what they had made of it.

Sadly, the fun that is present in the book is nowhere to be found in the movie. What remains is the sad story of a romance between our protagonist and his highly disturbed girlfriend.

Having said that, "Ik ook van jou" makes for an entertaining night of television, just don't expect to much. Maybe the next adaptation of a Ronald Giphart novel will do better (Phileine zegt sorry).

Being use to very low quality dutch movies, I must admit this is one of the better ones. By far not one of THE BEST but still a good movie. Somewhat special for me personaly because of an old relation.

Still it is a "must see" for anyone that likes dutch movies.

One of the movies i just DIDN'T want to see. I got it in the sneak-preview, but damn, the acting was very bad! At the end of the movie (i still am surprised i watched the whole movie..) i wondered why i watched the movie.

Also here in the netherlands, the writer of this movie (it's filmed from a book of Giphart) thought it was very bad, and was disappointed that his movie came out like this. Next time he wants a role in choosing people for the cast.

This movie is nice especially if you have read the book by R.Giphard. The story is good and not boring. It's about the relationship between Reza and Eric. One getting more and more crazy and the other trying to become a writer. The acting of Kamerling and Schijf is ok as long as they don't get too emotional (please learn to cry Kamerling!)

After "Lek" this is the second great Dutch movie that came out recently. Great performances all aroud with especially Angela Schijf showing that she is a fabulous actress and as a great career in front of her.

The movies starts slow, but after a while it really sucks you in and you can't help to share the love, pain and dispear of the Erik and Reza.

Got see this movie now!!! Is had been compared to Turks Fruit/Turkisch Delights by Paul Verhoeven, but this movie is more enjoyable (sorry Paul)!