European Films

An ill mother's death wish and a girlfriend's absence because of career concerns make life a hell for the hip Dutch writer Giph in Ik omhels je met duizend armen (A Thousand Kisses). The cinematic swansong of director Willem van de Sande Bakhuyzen is an adaptation of a  semi-autobiographical Ronald Giphart novel, with relative newcomer Tijn Docter having the difficult task of making the protagonist seem emotionally swamped yet articulate (he is a writer after all). Catherine ten Bruggencate (Mad Madonna from Antonia's Line) and Carice van Houten (the star of Verhoeven's Zwartboek/Black Book) steal the show as the women in the writer's life. Festival and TV programming abroad are certainly possible, though the combination of a difficult subject matter and an unspectacular treatment of the main character may limit further expansion.

The film starts after Giph's mother has died and Giph and his glamourous girlfriend get together for a holiday in La Palma with a group of shallow showbiz friends. The main meat, dramatically speaking, is in the backstory detailing how Giph deals with the illness and final decision of his mother, and how, rather than leaning on his girlfriend Samarinde for support, he pushes her away. Giph has decided he will break up with Samarinde during the holiday, as he blames her for not being at his side when his mother suddenly deteriorated and decided to anticipate her euthanasia wish. Samarinde (who, in one of the story's more improbable male writer flights of fancy is both a young doctor and a fashion model) was in Japan for a two-month project with a famous artist, something Giph himself had encouraged her to accept despite the condition of his mother. 

Giph is a potentially interesting young man caught between two more interesting women: his domineering mother Lotti, who becomes ever more dependent on him as her multiple sclerosis worsens and finally makes her a bed-ridden invalid; and his girlfriend Samarinde, who lives the high life of fashion spreads and commercials shot abroad as a way to escape the sick people she attends to at the hospital. Samarinde is first received by Lotti with nothing but praise for her glamour job: "God! What a stunner you are," she says upon first meeting her, "I can see why you are into modelling". But the life-weary woman reveals her true self when Samarinde confesses during a Christmas dinner that she is thinking of giving up a career in medicine for full-time modelling: "Your generation," she sighs, exasperated. "Where can you still find people who would do something for their fellow human beings?".

The generation gap between these two women and the outlook on life of both is of course crucial here (since they inform Giph's crisis, and in the case of his mother, his personality), though strangely the director and screenwriters Ruud Schuurman and Edward Stelder never seem to dwell on the similarities and differences between the two women in the young writer's life. That they make such an impression is mostly because of the phenomenal performances of Ten Bruggencate and Van Houten, both imbuing their characters with a lot more than the script calls for. Between them stands Docter as Giph, a man full of contradictions and despair, but who never emerges as a character of his own.

Technically, Ik omhels je met duizend armen is a lush production, shot in a gorgeous widescreen by cinematographer Lex Brand that is miles away from the many TV films that litter Van de Sande Bakhuyzen's filmography. Editing by frequent Bakhuyzen collaborator Wouter Jansen fluidly switches between past and present, though the back-and-forth story structure does not really enhance dramatic momentum. Supporting actors, including Van Houten's Zwartboek co-stars Halina Reijn and Johnny de Mol, are appropriately vapid in throwaway roles. The Dutch title literally means "I Embrace You With A Thousand Arms", which is the wish that comes with a fortune cookie for Lotti's character.

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