6/10
Stijn's coming of age?
10 December 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Just saw the movie tonight and it leaves me with mixed feelings. It tells of a woman in the prime of her life being destroyed by cancer and the way this disease affects herself as well as her loved ones. The movie shows you some of the harsh realities of a family fighting breast cancer, the horrid struggle of adapting to a life which has become so much different from the life they were used to. The subject matter reminded me somewhat of the 1993 movie 'My Life', but then being a much more raw and honest version that doesn't leave out the ugly parts like chemotherapy scarring, throwing up and changes in ones personality and social life.

The movie is divided in three parts, with the last twenty minutes of the movie being the most to my liking. It begins by (unfortunately very shortly) summarizing the background story to the relationship of Carmen and Stijn, a successful yuppie couple somewhere in their thirties, who live in Amsterdam and have a little daughter together. They both work at an advertising firm and have developed a successful career and loving (though sometimes troubled) marriage. Then cancer kicks in and we see them struggling with the diagnose.

At what might be called "the end of the beginning of Carmen's cancer", the second part of the movie starts. The main storyteller of this movie is not Carmen but her husband Stijn and the second part of the movie turns more to Stijn's adultery than to Carmen's struggle. Instead of showing Stijn and Carmen's difficulties as their way of life together changes, we follow Stijn indulging in an extreme amount of escapism. This is regrettable as the way this is portrayed makes the movie become like a screaming MTV clip with excessive amounts of nudity, loud and mostly unnecessary background music to almost every moment that involves emotion and a roller-coaster type of storytelling that jumps from one highlight to the other without leaving room for contemplation or thorough character development. As a viewer you're interested in what Carmen's cancer does to the family as a whole, how it affects Carmen's relationship to Stijn, their daughter and each other, but this is hardly shown in a way that get's the viewer emotionally involved.

Therefore the second part is were the movie takes a wrong turn in terms of focus and storytelling, as the movie shows us little of these deeper emotional developments. Stijn's adultery should have just been a background to tell us more of their struggle as a family, but instead it's Carmen's fight that seems to become no more than an excuse for showing more and more of Stijn's wild life and infidelity. In my opinion the story of Stijn's adultery could have been told in far less scenes than this movie uses, and still have retained it's touch while also leaving some room for more balanced character development. We see minutes of Stijn having sex with Roos in all possible positions, but only seconds of Stijn supporting Carmen as she suffers an emotional breakdown. Even worse, the way Carmen's sickness affects her role as a mother and Stijn's role as a father to their little daughter is hardly even spoken of. As we as a viewer are meant to believe Stijn's escapism springs forth from his love for his wife and loss of control of the situation, it would have made sense to show more of his feelings for his wife, instead of making them seem like an unwelcome distraction from the story of Stijn's sex life.

I haven't read the book, so I'm not sure if there's any deviations from it, but to me the way the story tends to focus more on the male character Stijn than on his wife Carmen and daughter Luna is a shame, especially since the final part of this movie is so well done. This final part of the movie, which *SPOILER* might be called "the beginning of the end for Carmen" is much slower, focuses more on their bond, their daughter and Stijn's role as a father and husband. It's tragic, intense and very moving. I could only have hoped the whole movie would have been filmed this way, with attention to details and deeper emotions instead of just showing endless scenes of Stijn's sexual frustration and anger.

So I'd like to conclude by saying this is a pretty good movie, with a strong subject matter, that unfortunately loses focus along the way and exposes some serious storytelling issues, for which even a strong ending doesn't make up completely. I therefore have mixed feelings, as I can't help but wonder that because as a viewer you feel sympathy for the touching subject matter, you feel an urge to overlook it's flaws in terms of story and the way it's brought to the screen. A truly good movie however, enhances the subject matter instead of constantly deviating from it. The movie is called "A woman goes to the doctor", *SPOILER* but sadly a better title would have been "A male adulterer doesn't change, no matter what".
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