Nick (2012)

Directed by: Fow Pyng Hu | 90 minutes | drama | Merijn de Jong, Marcel Hensema, Elisa Beuger, Maarten Heijmans

Some people are unguided missiles, with an animal instinct. They don’t allow themselves to be steered or categorized by anything and anyone and long for freedom. Their mood can change in the blink of an eye, making them quite unpredictable. Nick (Merijn de Jong) is such a restless and fickle person. All of a sudden he can break loose and see if he can get a hold of him again. Just ask his girlfriend Monie (Elisa Beuger), who has experienced first hand that there is no land to sail with Nick. She finds him unreasonable itself, although she is not an easy aunt herself. Every gathering degenerates into quarrels, into mutual reproaches. But even though Monie breaks off the relationship, Nick is back on the doorstep the next day, as if nothing happened. Wim (Marcel Hensema) knows all about it. As Nick’s boss at a Michelin-starred restaurant, he knows all too well how unmanageable Nick is. He needs it because Nick is an excellent sous chef. But he regularly gets the blood under his nails with his derogatory comments and erratic behavior.

Fow Pyng Hu’s film ‘Nick’ (2012) is a case study; an intense portrait of an intelligent but unsympathetic and unreasonable bastard. Because that’s what you can call Nick. It is not easy to get the viewer to go along with his worries, because he repels people rather than attracts them. Hu succeeds nicely in that, although Nick remains an annoying character, even if he finally seems to find his liberation. Nick knows with his unpredictable behavior without any effort to antagonize everyone. That cost him his relationship and his job. He’s arrogant enough to think he can knock on the door the next day to ask for his job back, but this time Wim really thinks he’s gone too far. The border has been crossed, so Wim shows him the door. Nick doesn’t like that and he goes nuts. The only one who seems to be there for him is his young colleague Sophie (Luna Meijovic), who goes to her native Croatia to look for truffles in the woods. He decides to go with her. They barely know each other and tensions regularly run high along the way, but they persist nonetheless. Nick gains more and more insight into his own life and behavior and hopes to finally find what he is looking for in the Croatian forests.

The film, like its main character, is not easy to embrace. ‘Nick’ is capricious and difficult to gauge. That we are dealing with a complex character becomes clear right from the start thanks to a characteristic first scene in which Nick feeds pigeons. That tender moment changes like a leaf on a tree as he then chases the birds like a small child and kicks them until he finally hits one. The animal is catapulted against a car. Dead. For a moment everything goes through Nick. Finally, he nonchalantly slides the animal away from under a car: nothing to worry about. It is arguably one of the best scenes in the film. The parallel Hu draws with animals (because there are many more in ‘Nick’) is nice anyway. Nick is actually a wild animal caged by society and the norms and values ​​as we know them. He would prefer to spread his wings and fly away, into freedom. No one there to tell him what to do, how to behave. We cling to this theme, because otherwise ‘Nick’ is a bit unruly. While Benito Strangio’s camera work is at times stunning, the screenplay and dialogues are of varying quality. De Jong convincingly plays an annoying and self-centered man, but if the intention was to make him come across as somewhat sympathetic, unfortunately that didn’t work out.

‘Nick’ is a film with snags. A film that repels on the one hand but attracts on the other. Just like Nick himself, the film manages to fascinate you on the one hand, but on the other hand it gets the blood under your nails because of its capricious and elusive character. A movie that makes you feel uncomfortable. Fortunately, the final scene provides a lot of clarification. That one scene finally allows you to place and even somewhat understand Nick. Fow Pyng Hu makes a daring drama that won’t strike the right chord with everyone. The intentions are nevertheless good, so ‘Nick’ deserves the benefit of the doubt.