User reviews

Thoroughly enjoyed this road movie that made me forget I watched it with my friends. There is a good mix between drama and humor. The dutch actresses (sisters Van Houten) act very natural and the American (Holly Hunter) actress acts intriguing. You follow the journey of the Dutch sisters with their long lost Americain mother. Although a difficult process the journey leads to some insight in their lives. It clarifies the way they live their life. By driving their mother round they also add value to her miserable life. The music adds to the atmosphere of the movie that ends with a nice twist in the tale. The story is simple and not flawless, but overall I give it a 8 because of the good mix of drama, humor and atmosphere.

I enjoyed this film, whether because of or in spite of some of its peculiarities, I know not. Two young adult dutch sisters, with lives in Holland as problematic as anybody's, get word that their absentee American mother has gone into a hospital in New Mexico, dare each other to take on the job, and wind up still together, meeting her for the first time at a rehab center in the States. The story is of how they all get to know each other and how the sisters are able to make some changes of their own, thanks to the journey. Oddly, many sexes are represented here, but decent non-macho, non-dickhead males are thin on the ground. To be fair, that doesn't seem to be a poke at Americans, since the sisters have the same issues to deal with back in Amsterdam-and are forced to deal with them via Skype during the road trip; just odd. Another oddness is that the filmmakers set and shot the story in a New Mexico that could have been the location for "the Road". It's a flat, barren wasteland that looks more like the deserts of West Texas or Oklahoma than like anybody's Land of Enchantment. Their trip takes them through one cruddy jerkwater roadhouse after another. That serves to point out that, yes, some Europeans do like American Country-Western music. But what happened to the Rocky Mountains, Santa Fe and Albequerque? New Mexico can be spectacular, but the director seems to have chosen what she found under a rock instead. Odd. If for no other reason, this film is worth watching for the "Dykes on Bikes" sequence. I will say no more.

The movie is about two dutch sisters who travel to America to meet their mother who has been gone for their whole lives. She is in the hospital with a fractured leg, and she needs to be transferred to a centre for rehabilitation. But the mother is a bit strange. She doesn't seem very happy to see her children. They travel together many kilometers in the mothers minibus, they get a lot of new experiences and their lives change forever. It is a great movie, and the story with the two sisters seeing their mother again is great. It is funny and a specially the ending is a bit overwhelming. The ending comes very unexpected, and one could think that the movie could have been much better and more worth watching if the ending had been different.

Dutch twin sisters, Sofie (Carice van Houten) and Daan (Jelka van Houten), never knew their birth mother. Their gay fathers are happily married and used visiting American hippie Jackie as a surrogate. Daan is struggling to get pregnant. Career-obsessed Sofie has no use for starting her own family. They get a call from America. Jackie (Holly Hunter) needs help after a stay in the hospital.

These are compelling actresses and this is a good neo-family road trip. One thing that kept bugging me for most of the movie. These girls should realize that Jackie would know some Dutch. She probably spent some time there. I kept waiting for the scene where she tells the girls something which reveals that she's been listening to her all that time. I have to give it to the movie. I never saw the twist coming. In some ways, it's a great twist and it says something about family more than Fast & Furious. I like that Sofie almost left it with the garbage and I really like the last scene in the suburbs. I do want a better way for the girls to have agency in tracking down their mother and they really should be smart enough to know that she would speak at least some passing Dutch.

This is a magnificent movie. It contains feel-good, ups and downs, laughter and tears, violence and kindness, love and lust. A lot of contradictions. The movie is a mirror of real life, like road movies should be. All actors are casted great. The scenery is philosophical and well chosen for the story. Especially the end is magical. Not in a fairy-tale way but in a way people should think about what fairy-tales are. The singing is beautiful, the acting is true, the girls are lovely, the mother too. I enjoyed every minute, every frame. The story takes you along and stays with you for a very long time. It's an intense experience. Without spoiling it for future watchers: this is what life is all about. A philosophical approach of family and of love... The fabulous end is the answer to all questions.

Road-movies can be fun depending on the depth of the story and the journey there and back might even leave you begging for more. "Jackie", however, is an insipid excursion into boredom city, where the waiting-for-something-to-happen is the only thing actually happening.

We've all been on that road before, looking for that something meaningful we think we lost and finding it after a long search may not bring the satisfaction we were expecting. It's not a long movie, but the slow pace and lack of rhythm makes it the perfect sleeping medicine. Unfortunately you realize you're still in the theater, so snoozing through the credits might not look very nice. The story is not so bad, but the fact that it takes so long for everything to wrap up makes this movie quite a pain to watch.