All is Love (2007)

Directed by: Joram Lürsen | 110 minutes | comedy, romance | Actors: Carice van Houten, Chantal Janzen, Daan Schuurmans, Michiel Romeyn, René van t Hof, Dennis Overeem, Peter Paul Muller, Eric Schneider, Paul de Leeuw, Wendy van Dijk, Valerio Zeno, Jeroen Spitzenberger, Thomas Acda, Lineke Rijxman, Marc-Marie Huijbregts, Anneke Blok, Marisa van Eijle, Viggo Waas, Lies Visschedijk, Alex Klaasen

While the phenomenon of the Christmas film is about as old as Santa Claus himself, the full-length Sinterklaas film is still in its infancy. It wasn’t until 2005 that a serious start was made with ‘The Horse of Sinterklaas’, a youth film about the Chinese girl Winky Wong and her clashes with the Good Saint. In 2007 it actually happened twice; while the kids get another visit from Winky, the adults can enjoy ‘All is Love’, a romantic evening comedy in mosaic form. To make this comedy a commercial hit, the producers left little to chance. The cast consists of almost all of the acting Netherlands, the mussel rockers of Bløf wrote and played the title song, while a French color wizard was flown in to provide the streets, canals and harbors of Amsterdam with a fairytale palette. The result may be there. The film looks beautiful, the actors are easy to understand, the music has been chosen with care and the acting is (for the most part) perfectly fine.

Still, none of this would be worth much without an appealing scenario. Kim van Kooten, who is committed to this task, shows that she has a complete grasp of the specific genre and the specific form. Because of the naturalness with which the storylines alternate, intersect and go their own way again, you would almost forget that this is the point where many mosaic films go wrong. Moreover, the screenwriter is experienced enough to know that romance only thrives with the necessary heartbreak, and that a comedy cannot do without tragedy.

The humor in ‘Everything is Love’ ranges from simple pranks to some rock-solid finds. Night-voicing corps balls (including prince) pushing an unmanned invalid carriage into the canal are more primitive humor, but what they exclaim afterwards is really, really, really funny. Those frat balls are part of the handful of caricatures that make up the film, including a slutty salesman and a confused houseboat dweller. Yet most characters are sharply drawn and have enough individuality to pass for full-fledged characters. We also owe the impact of the moving scenes to the latter.

For example, ‘Everything is Love’ has become a fine romantic comedy, which only misses a single negligible point. Due to the smooth switching between the different storylines and the well-dosed alternation of comic and dramatic scenes, the 110 minutes fly by. The producers actually seem to be right when they very bluffily printed ‘The romantic comedy of 2007’ on the poster. We just as bluffily put a few big exclamation marks after that.