Don’t Touch My Children (2010)

Directed by: Ron Termaat | 90 minutes | drama | Actors: Karina Smulders, Thom Hoffman, Huseyin Cahit Ölmez, Tjebbo Gerritsma, Jurgen Bogaert, Fiona Livingston, Nobiha Ben Miled, Ridha Joudi, Mohamed Ali Madani, Pieter van der Sman, Antoinette Jelgersma, Klaas Hulst, Karine Roldaan, Hilbert Dijkstra, Margje Wittermans, Thouraya Ouhada

It would be a trip to Euro Disney… In 2004 the life of Janneke Schoonhoven from Oude Pekela in Groningen was turned upside down in one fell swoop when her ex-husband Hisham kidnapped their two children Sara and Ammar to his homeland Syria. For two years she moved heaven and earth to get the children back to the Netherlands, but her violent ex did not exactly cooperate and the Dutch authorities were powerless since our country has no extradition treaty with Syria. Anyone who has paid attention knows that this kidnapping drama ended well: in 2006 – more than two years after their kidnapping – Sara and Ammar returned to the Netherlands. The Schoonhoven family’s story is not an isolated one: every year in the Netherlands alone, between one hundred and two hundred children are kidnapped abroad by one of their parents. To warn other women, Janneke decided to write a book about her experiences. A film has also been made of the book.

In ‘Don’t touch my children’ (2010), the mother, who has been renamed Hanne Veenhooven, is played by Karina Smulders. Her first marriage to Nizar (Cahit Ölmez), the father of daughter Bibi and son Azim, ended in failure and she has been together for several years now with the gentle lobbes Bertus (Tjebbo Gerritsma), with whom she has twins. The quietly rippling life is suddenly turned upside down when Nizar lures Bibi and Azim along under false pretenses and books them a one-way ticket to Damascus. Hanne initially suspects no evil intentions, but when the children are gone for a very long time, she decides to visit them in Syria. Only then comes the realization that Nizar has no intention of ever bringing Bibi and Azim back to the Netherlands. With the help of advisor Wouter Simons (Thom Hoffman), who works at the Child Abduction Foundation, the desperate Hanne wants to do everything in her power to get her children back. However, that does not turn out to be very simple. Certainly not because she appears not to have completely gotten over her love for Nizar.

It is almost impossible not to draw a parallel between ‘Don’t touch my children’ and its American counterpart ‘Not Without My Daughter’ (1991), in which a mother with her daughter is detained by her husband in Iran. Both films have their hearts in the right place and want to expose a current theme. But both films also suffer from the same defect: the (ex-) man is portrayed in a particularly black and white manner. They are brutes with loose hands and compelling personalities. In ‘Don’t touch my children’ the characters are hardly explored at all: we only get to know Hanne a little better, the other characters remain oversimplified and one-dimensional. But precisely because of the lack of depth in the characters, it is difficult for a viewer to empathize with them. It says enough that Nizar’s family in Syria – who, unlike Nizar himself, is very friendly with the children and also wants to get to know Hanne better – seem more sympathetic than Hanne’s new husband and her parents, who seem distant and cool. The poorly developed characters are not the biggest problem with this film, however, that is the script, which seems to be completely out of balance. The opening is fragmentary – events pass at lightning speed. A calm explanation of characters and situation is unfortunately not included, so that the beginning has a strongly enumerating character. However, the momentum disappears from the story as soon as Hanne has been to Syria for the first time, only to rear its head again towards the end.

‘Don’t touch my children’ also certainly has its strong points. Central is the performance of leading actress Karina Smulders (‘Bride Flight’, 2008), who portrays the desperate mother with complete credibility, who is ready to get her children back. Unfortunately, she sometimes gets very bad dialogue, but let’s see through that and give Smulders all the space to shine. Hoffman and Ölmez also don’t fare badly, although their options are limited because their roles are too one-sided or simplistic. The film actually has a small highlight: towards the end director Ron Termaat (‘Lef’, 1999) manages to make the story exciting – and that’s especially clever since we already know how it will end. But the pros do not outweigh the cons. We haven’t even mentioned the poor acting by the children, the effect-driven use of music (especially ‘Lost’ by Anouk) and the barely stimulating visual style.

The film adaptation of Janneke Schoonhoven’s autobiography adds little to her impressive story, certainly not because the film is far from perfect and, mainly thanks to the talent of Karina Smulders, it still stands up somewhat. First and foremost, however, is that the good intentions of the makers of ‘Don’t touch my children’ cannot be tampered with.