A Little Love (2006)

Directed by: Martin Koolhoven | 85 minutes | comedy, romance | Actors: Yesser Roshdy, Ad van Kempen, Tjitske Reidinga, Geert de Jong, Plien van Bennekom, Sabri Saad El-Hamus, Fatma Genç, Sadik Eksi, Luk D’Heu, Frieda Pittoors, Gene Bervoets, Yahya Gaier

The Dutch multicultural society is a fact. It is also a fact that multicultural films cannot be missed. In 2004 we had ‘Shouf Shouf Habibi!’ and in 2005 director Martin Koolhoven brought us the hilarious ‘Het Schnitzelparadijs’. He’s done it again, is a good sentence to introduce his latest comedy ”n Little in love’.

Rapper Yes-R does not do bad as ‘mocro’ who tries to get his grandfather to wife again and is willing to give a lot to be with his Turkish girlfriend Meral. A lot even. Keywords are: naked bodies, wrestling and olive oil… a lot of olive oil. This time, the two real stars of the film are not so much the protagonists Omar and Grandpa Thijs, but his daughters Vonne (Plien van Bennekom) and Aafke (Tjitske Reidinga). Vonne is a bossy mother who makes every viewer laugh with her bizarre facial expressions and Aafke is a meddling therapist who needs therapy herself and gets a mental breakdown at the slightest slightest. The chemistry between the two sisters is fantastic and the way they breed each other in every scene and want to arrange everything in their own way makes for a lot of funny situations.

‘A Little Love’ is not really ultra-romantic. The scenes that are meant to be romantic are more cute and touching: two old people secretly kissing in the wardrobe of the dance school just don’t give the viewer that romantic feeling. In that respect, not much attention is paid to the love between Omar and Meral. Okay, Omar is trying to win over Meral and that’s romantic enough in itself, but a real kiss can’t get rid of it either.

Will ”n Little Love’ be the Christmas movie of 2006? The film’s screen titles alone, consisting of fantastic cartoons of the actors, increase the likelihood of this title. The title song of the film, of course (rapped) sung by Yes-R, is also very catchy and will undoubtedly do well in the charts.

If you as a viewer are looking for a good dose of romance this Christmas, you better go to another film. Are you looking for humour, warmth, rarities, red tomatoes, naked bodies, olive oil and love, then ”n Little Love’ is highly recommended.