Rokjesdag (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
Follow Genre: Romantic comedy
Director: Johan Nijenuis
Distributor: eOne
Duration: 111 minutes

Rokjesdag (Blu-ray) – Movie Review

Site Score
6.7
Good: Sit back and relax
Bad: Not much depth to the story or characters
User Score
5.3
(4 votes)
Click to vote
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Rating: 5.3/10 (4 votes cast)

In the Netherlands, rokjesdag is the first day in spring where it’s warm enough to finally wear a skirt bare legged. It’s the time of year when everything looks so fresh and new, with blossoming trees and birds coming out of their nests. No wonder there are so many singles in this film, ready to get to know new people in a cooking workshop on this very day, rokjesdag. At the end of the day, they will hopefully have found their perfect match, but the evening doesn’t pass without surprises.

Rokjesdag

On the first sunny day of the year, we meet a bunch of singles, all looking for true love. Marijke (Lieke van Lexmond) is a lawyer, always working and talking about her job, Edwin (Martijn Fischer) is a butterfly keeper at the zoo, Chantal (Anne-Marie Jung) is a bus driver, in short they are all very different, yet looking for the same thing. They all meet up that evening, as all of them signed up for a cooking workshop for singles called ‘Love Bites’, organized by Bor (Loek Peters) and Alexandra (Carly Wijs). Basically, it’s a kind of speed dating while cooking. As the singles get to know each other, it becomes clear that all of them have quite peculiar sides to their personality. Take Trevor (David Lucieer) for example: he bombards his cooking partner with a list of questions to see if they have a mathematical match. Marijke immediately starts talking about babies, turning all men off, and Mika (Barbara Sloesen) marked all sensitive spots on her body with a permanent marker, just to be sure. But who will end up with who? Some couples may seem unlikely, but there are definitely sparks in the room.

With so many characters in one movie, it’s difficult to bring a cohesive story. While it is safe to say that all characters get their fair share of screen time, it also makes for a long film that, despite its longitude doesn’t have that much depth to it. Besides that, the story is rather light and airy – a bit of love, a bit of hate, a bit of lust and betrayal – and is quite fun to watch, and not completely predictable, a bit to our surprise. All in all, it is certainly an enjoyable pastime if you just want to sit down and relax.

Rokjesdag 1

It’s quite uncommon to have so many lead actors in one film, and evidently it causes all of them to have storylines that are rather straightforward. Nonetheless they manage to keep it fresh and fun. Actors like Martijn Fischer and Barbara Sloesen add a funny note picturing characters that are quite out of the ordinary. The acting performances lift the otherwise simple story to a higher level.

Surprisingly, there are no extras at all on this release. It’s nothing truly bothering as the film itself lasts about two hours already, yet we did expect something nonetheless. For a feel good, comedy film such as this one, some bloopers or deleted scenes wouldn’t have been out of place but unfortunately, all you get is the film itself. Fun enough, but we would have been happy with something more.

Conclusion

Rokjesdag is one of those typical romantic feel good films, yet with quite an elaborate cast. While it’s certainly fun to see so many talented actors on screen together, it also has a downside, as the storylines of the characters are quite straightforward. Nonetheless, acting performances lift the story up and it all looks quite nice anyway. It’s just too bad that there is no extra content to enjoy, but you’ll have an enjoyable, relaxing two hours altogether.

Rokjesdag 2

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Rating: 5.3/10 (4 votes cast)
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Rokjesdag (Blu-ray) - Movie Review, 5.3 out of 10 based on 4 ratings

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