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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Because I really like and admire Carice van Houten I got a hold of this movie and watched it. I did, I hung in there, although I was tempted at least half a dozen times to hit the 'stop' button. This movie sucks. It really does. There's not one redeeming quality about it. Not one. On the other hand, there are plenty things that condemn it.For instance, the music. In the history of film making there has never been a movie with a more inconsistent score. One minute it's operatic singing, next minute we get a mind-numbing dance drone. And classic again, then house again. And so on...The characters. Stijn really is the lowest of the low. Even though his wife knows he will cheat on her on occasion, he still finds it necessary to dish her crap stories of going for a drink with a friend. It makes you loathe him, not hate, because he's not worth it. Just loathe. Carmen is a little better, although, as one other reviewer stated, she withdrew her divorce threat way too easily. Still, having to endure all the hardships of chemo, then radiation, then having her breast amputated, she at least shows some spirit.The scenes. The story is shot in Amsterdam, one on the most crowded places on the face of the earth. Yet, when Carmen stops the car in the middle of the road in a tunnel, there are no other cars bumping into them, flashing their headlights or honking their horns. One car comes by approximately every minute. In Amsterdam? Yeah, right. Even at 3 a.m. there's heavy traffic. The same thing happens when Stijn is driving drunk and hits a couple of other cars. We see an empty crossing, no cyclists, nobody coming out of their houses to see what all the noise is about. Nada. Weird...The plot. On a number of occasions, when Carmen needs to go to the hospital, or to the doctor, and Stijn decides to have sex with his 'spare woman', we are led to believe that the little girl, no older than 5, is left alone in the house. At least, when Stijn finally arrives back, I don't see a babysitter, there's no mention of parents staying over or anything like that. There should have been...The direction. It appears that when you are famous in the Netherlands, you can do just about anything you want, for instance, direct a movie. Lack of experience, even lack of talent, is no obstacle. Maybe Reinout Oerlemans does have talent, but it doesn't show in this film. Like other reviewers stated, there are plenty of nude scenes, most of them totally obsolete, the protagonists hop on planes to various global destinations, again without ever seeming to provide care for their kid. And what bugs me also, is the abundant swearing. It's cancer this and cancer that (in Dutch the term cancer 'kanker', like many other serious diseases, is frequently used as an adjective, very much in the same vein as Americans use f..king). Which brings me to another weak point: the dialogue. It seems nobody can speak proper Dutch anymore. Carmen at one point says: "Mensen kijken zielig naar me". This means "People are looking at me pathetically". What she should have said, is "People are looking at me with sympathy/empathy" ("Mensen kijken medelijdend naar me"). And the list goes on...and on...and on...But where the movie really fails, is on the emotional level. I'm a softy, when Bambi's mother gets shot, I yank out my handkerchief. Yet this film did not move me one bit. The only emotion I felt is when I tried to identify with the little girl, having lost my own father to cancer when I was eight. But this is hardly a merit of the film.So...to sum it up. Bad script, bad music, poor direction, not worth wasting nearly two hours of your live on.

And all the sudden everyone in the Netherlands knew Kluun (the author). He wrote this perfect and heart breaking story based on his own life. Kluun lost his wife of cancer and cheated on her to get distraction. The book and therefor the movie are about struggle against cancer, if you need to hear one sentence.I was happily surprised after I saw the movie, which is based on the book. All the emotions you feel when reading, you feel the same emotions when watching the movie, which is a huge compliment. The actors bring the characters of the book to life and they do it in a brilliant and subtle way. The movie is beautiful and a justice to the book and the author. It's just as pure and honest as the author has meant for the book. So, forget who are acting or directed it, just watch the movie.The original Dutch title is 'Komt een vrouw bij de dokter' (the English version of the book is named 'Love Life', the movie 'A woman goes to the doctor'), which needs an explanation. The sentence is the first line of one of those typical Dutch jokes. Kluun explains that he wished that the story of him and his wife would have ended up like one of these terrible jokes.The story is about a young and successful married couple, Stijn and Carmen and their daughter Luna. Then all the sudden, after a visit to the PG ('dokter' or 'huisarts' in Dutch), followed by the hospital, Carmen is diagnosed with breast cancer. No need to say that their beautiful world they live in, collapses. While Carmen is starting chemo therapy and so on, Stijn does what he does best to deal with this situation he can't control; cheating on his wife.Stijn has cheated before, which Carmen knew. She has confronted him in the past and he told her the truth. Now he's the supporting husband during the day, but at night time he turns back to his old habits; having sex with other women. Again, Carmen knows, but can handle the fact that her husband isn't the monogamous type. She knows that those women aren't important and at the end of the day Stijn will always come back to her. And to Stijn, other women are just entertainment, one night stands, women he doesn't need to see again, it's just sex.But things get worse for Carmen and after losing her breast and hair, she isn't the confident woman as she was before and she doesn't feel comfortable anymore with Stijn cheating on her. During that period, Stijn gets to know Roos. It started with sex, but he realizes he wants more from Roos. And because of Roos, he stays away more often. But while Stijn is with Roos, Carmen prepares Luna that she'll be gone. Carmen realizes she wants and needs the full attention of her husband to be there for her and their daughter. She asks him to quit cheating to work on their marriage. Stijn agrees, but things are getting worse and worse with Carmen, which means it's getting more difficult for Stijn to handle it. To handle life with a dying Carmen, Luna to support and the sexy Roos he desperately wants at the same time.The movie is Dutch, but has Enlgish subtitles. Please, take the effort to watch it (or buy at least the book). You'll be ended up in tears, it's worth it. I can recommend it and I would even urge people to do so. Often the partners of the one with cancer are pushed to the background, while they also have to struggle just as hard although in a different way). You can be narrow minded and judge Stijn, but in the end it's a way of surviving.I saw the movie with my husband who haven't read the book. We both ended up in tears and we both needed some time to process what we've just seen.SPOILER ALERT: Stijn supports his wife the best way he can. But he ends up with Roos again, despite the promise he made his wife. Ofcrouse these 2 life and work won't combine, which results in a huge fight with Carmen. At that point he realizes that Carmen's life is too short to split it with Roos. Although by now he loves Roos, he chooses to support Carmen and Luna for the rest of her life. After a short period of time, Carmen can't handle it anymore and decides she wants to commit euthanasia. After this very emotional moment of saying goodbye and let each other go. Stijn then wants Roos to be part of the funeral. Even though it might started for the sex, he also realizes that his marriage probably would have ended in a divorce if it wasn't for Roos. Because of his relationship with Roos and Roos's support, he had the strength to support and love his wife till the very end.In real life, Stijn (Kluun) is still with Roos (Naat). His 2nd daughter (of Kluun and Naat) is named Roos after the character Roos. The book is dedicated to his first wife Juud (Carmen in the book) and Naat.

This is the movie of the famous Dutch book 'komt een vrouw bij de dokter'. The book describes the true events that the author (Kluun) experienced when his wive is diagnosed with breast cancer that eventually takes her life.First of all, this movie is as dull as a one-in-a-thousand soap operas on TV. Second, the main character is unsympathetic. You cannot make a movie around someone you cannot identify with. You can try, but only few directors can pull off such a thing. Reinout Oerlemans surely can not.The movie tries to be dramatic, but never even comes close to real drama. Its almost slapstick. For example the scene where Carmed hears about her illness from the doctor conveys no drama or emotion at all! Its also rushed into the movie. No character built-up, no nothing.The main character is a person you cannot have sympathy for. His wive gets cancer, he can't handle it and runs away. He cheated on his wife when she was still healthy, so he surely cheats on his wife when she gets sick. He is an asshole, but his wife is even more stupid because she likes him no matter what.The movie only revolves around Stijn, his wife Carmen is actually a card-board persona that has no depth at all. All her decisions remain unexplained, yet she is the one dealing with a cheating husband, and cancer. We must make notice here that the book only tells Stijns version of the story. Carmen is dead so we cannot ask her anything. Kluun (the author of the book) cleverly left out all that is interesting.In the end of the movie Carmen dies and I liked it. She deserved not to live in my opinion. Stijn deserves his wife dying on him, because he never really cared about her in the first place. His wife dead, makes sure he cannot harm her even more. He never loved his wife, I can tell you that. The author even tries to make money out of her death by writing a self-indulged book and trying to sell his whining and his childish behavior. This man never deserved his book being turned into a proper film, I am glad it didn't.I know people that have been in the same position as Stijn, and they did not behave like this animal in the first place. They did not write silly books trying to get the attention of the mass-public: "look me, I am pathetic. My wife has cancer, look me. Look me, my wife has cancer, I am pathetic, shall we have sex?".The only interesting parts in this movie were the sex-scenes. As traditional Dutch cinema describes, this movie contains a lot of unnecessary nude-scenes that funny enough contain a lot of breasts. Carice "Look my breasts" van Houten does what she does: flash her breasts, like she does in all her movies. Really weird. I hope they make a porn movie out of this one, because that version will automatically have more story-line than this 'work of art'.Instead of crying, I was laughing at the end of the movie. I was bored and was glad this movie was over. The book was better than the movie because it had a little more dept. The author however, in my opinion is a criminal that deserves none of all the attention he gets.

For starters, i did not read the book. So i'm not going to make a comparison.The movie has a heavy story to tell, as movies about cancer always have. But this one is different. The main character cant coop with the cancer his wife has, and fills his emptiness with the love of another woman. Not that he had such clean hands before, and his wife is aware of that. For some reason he just can't have enough of one woman. The movie will tell you how that develops trough time in the harsh time that is awaiting them.Directing and script.I found Reinout Oerlemans did a pretty good job on the directing, but there are a few critical points.I thought the directing got a bit in a loop, using to much of the same angles and effects which can be a bit boring for the viewer. The same thing happens with the script, you come to a point were everything is clear, and it should enter a new chapter in the story. But it seems the director needed to be sure he got the message to the viewer. And that for me is the weakest part of the movie, it spreads the whole thing a bit to long.Acting The acting is great, Carice does a great, great job (as always). Showing allot of different emotions and giving so much character to here role. Also Barry Atsma does a great job on acting as well, i was not familiar with him but I'm anxious to see more movies with his screenplay. All the supporting roles where fine and well picked. I did not notice my self the be annoyed with any role or what so ever.A must see film, a directing debute for Reinault Oerlemans who did a great job, but could use a bit more finesse and diversity.Tissues advised.