Grimm

On a winter's day a cold-hearted father abandons his son Jacob and daughter Maria in the woods, while they were off looking for firewood. After they can't find their father, Jacob finds a letter in his coat from his mother telling them to go Spain to live with their uncle. While on this journey they bump into some conniving people, also they commit some of devilish crimes and most of the time find themselves in some bizarre circumstances.

*Shrug Shoulders* Um… yeah. Well, that's what I felt after this film had finished. It just has some type of spell over you, because what you are seeing on screen is outrageously awkward, highly unpredictable and a striking amount of imagination. The story loosely takes on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, but goes for a more grownup approach, which is filled with dark humour, incredibly odd adventures and like the title implies a grim nature. Even with all this imagination that went into it, there's something about it that left me undecided what to feel. It's hardly bad, as it had a hypnotic trance on me, but at the end I wasn't hugely impressed, as it seems to run out of steam after the half way mark. Which is a shame, as it had potential with its surreal setup and strange surprises but it becomes ponderously slow and the bizarre nature of it seems to fall by the way side in the third act. The plot… well, there really isn't one, because it's nothing but one comical episode after another and some don't make too much sense or add any real cohesion to proceedings. To make matters worse the characters, especially Jacob and Maria are glazed over and because of that they're hard to like or to connect with. But that doesn't take away from the overall performances, which I thought was generally good. Also other notables worked into the film is a lot of demented and deadpan humour, which either was an hit or a miss and also the sexual context was downright kinky. These generally bleak adventures the two encounter are highly out of the blue and hold a tremendous amount of impact, as the film bursts at the seams with a touch of fairytale magic. Other things that truly kept me glued were the slick cinematography that captured such ravishing scenery from woodlands, to desert terrains and an eerie ghost town. Backing up what we saw on screen was an impressive soundtrack that mixed a lot twang, from country, to rock and some indie. In all, weird… just plain weird!

A promising idea that's hypnotically enchanting, but it never reached the great heights like I wished it did.

At last we can see a movie that makes us Dutch folks laugh. It's based on a fairy tale of Grimm. It worth watching because I didn't see any better Dutch movie this year. Also I recommend De Noorderlingen en Kleine Teun.

I think this movie is unconventional and offbeat. I really liked it. I have seen it twice so far. It is also displays how one can go through hardships, bad luck. And yet keep going without disappointment and frustration. Both the characters though inspired from Hansel and Gretel are quite original. Movie is scripted very well. It starts with a small village in Netherlands bringing them to various places changing their lives drastically. Moral of the story is : Face it and handle it without complains!

Grimm Rocks!

I think this movie is unconventional and offbeat. I really liked it. I have seen it twice so far. It is also displays how one can go through hardships, bad luck. And yet keep going without disappointment and frustration. Both the characters though inspired from Hansel and Gretel are quite original. Movie is scripted very well. It starts with a small village in Netherlands bringing them to various places changing their lives drastically. Moral of the story is : Face it and handle it without complains!

Grimm Rocks!

This film has a rather impressive billing, with the version I rented stated "siblings Jacob and Marie embark on a surreal, often night-marrish odyssey." The movie starts out Hansel and Gretel-esquire in that regard, but doesn't move much further. There is a journey to be had, if one is interested in following two characters whom they know little about through different cities where they meet different people. The meetings have very little value to them, however, and the characters often meet conflict that is unexplained. Furthermore, movement between locales is poorly motivated and a unified agenda never sets imposes itself. If these meetings were accompanied by the surrealism that the movie billing suggests, I could have still walked away happily, but unfortunately the surrealism in the meetings is itself limited because much of what could have made a scene eerie is left unaddressed. As far as the comedy, the movie fails to win stars in that department as well. There are two or three hilarious encounters, but most of the comedy is a sort of "why would anybody do that" type of humor. Suits some, obviously. On the whole, the film is built for people with short memory spans, as segments really don't have any connection to each other. This fact is acceptable for the first 40 minutes, but by the 41st, you will certainly ask yourself why you are still watching, hoping that something relevant will occur.

I cannot totally smash the movie, however, as the colors were quite vibrant and the journey itself is something that certain watchers might find interesting in its own right. Also, it must be said that Halina Reijn, the lead female, is exciting to watch. Her facial expressions, her candor in front of camera. Of course, she's beautiful. I should also mention that a greater understanding of the Brothers Grimm and their folk tales might lend itself to a greater appreciation of the film. It was clear that this was the case with the 2005 Matt Damon film, but with this one, it is less obvious whether a greater understanding of the tales would make Grimm better.

If you're going to watch it, make sure you school yourself on the back story (the Brother's Grimm tales).

You might propably not like this film at all. I think this is of these films that need the viewer to be open minded. You should not go and view it if you are stuck to reality, or too used to Hollywood blockbusters. If you are one of those who say: No, you cannot go from Holland to Spain with one tank of gasoline, you should never watch this film! However, if you feel that odd things might very well be possible in films, and you don't care about odd things in films, this might be the one for you!

I think viewing it requires a bit of knowledge about fairy tales. Yes, the ones by the GRIMM brothers. The same way as the Coen Brothers knew how to use an old existing story and place it in modern times without loosing the context, Alex van Warmerdam took a story and found how to remake it in a modern way. The same sense of absurd humor, but maybe a little less funny, than o brother were art thou. van Warmerdam, however knew very well how to keep the way of storytelling by the grimm brothers intact. The flickering way of storytelling, combined with a fine feeling of suspense, makes this into one of my best Dutch films recently.