In Blue (2017)

Directed by: Jaap van Heusden | 102 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Maria Kraakman, Bogdan Iancu, Ellis van den Brink, Maria Rainea, Ada Gales, Patrick Vervueren, Line Pillet, Hannah van Lunteren, Yannick Jozefzoon, Anna Keuning, Ionut Niculae, Emilian Marnea, Tamara Markus, Lucien Rentmeester, Maarten Ketels, Don Alphonso, Valeriu Andriutã, Edon Rizvanolli, Sharai Troostwijk

There are probably better places to give birth than on a plane over the Alps. There are undoubtedly better places to experience a car accident than on the corrupt streets of Bucharest. Yet these are the things that flight attendant Lin experiences in the first minutes of the Dutch feature film ‘In Blue’. Fortunately, she does not have to give birth herself and she experiences that accident in the safe back seat of a taxi. Moreover, that accident earns her the friendship of the Romanian street rascal Nicu.

In the hour and a half that follows, we see how that friendship develops into a more complex whole. Lin is a mother without a child, Nicu a child without a mother. But Lin is also an attractive woman and Nicu is an adolescent with a surplus of hormones. Everyone is curious about the other’s world in their own way. Lin’s world is sterile, cold, seeking warmth. Nicu’s world is raw, addicted, sick and yearning for redemption.

‘In Blue’ introduces us to those different worlds, especially Nicu’s. This produces beautiful images, with the wintry Bucharest as a tranquil backdrop. The world of Lin and her mother may be a bit too sterile (Vinex, colourless, sleek interior), although the conversations with that mother give you a good idea of ​​what is going on in Lin’s head. We get that even better when we see her at work in her role as a trainer of student flight attendants (and a single flight attendant). The psychology of both characters is always believable, no matter how strange their actions sometimes seem. With Maria Kraakman (Lin) and Bogdan Iancu (Nicu) we also have two excellent actors in the house.

The only thing that ‘In Blue’ has against is that you quickly suspect how this will all turn out. That is inevitable with naturalistic films, just as it is inevitable that a reviewer will always have something to complain about. Despite that minor flaw, this reviewer enjoyed an intelligent and at times gripping drama for 94 minutes.