Porcelain – Porcelain (2019)

Directed by: Jenneke Boeijink | 96 minutes | drama | Actors: Tom Vermeir, Laura de Boer, Neathan van der Gronden, Teresa Saponangelo, Mattijn Hartemink, Peggy Vrijens, Johan Heldenbergh, Rafi Albers, Han Kerckhoffs, Romana Vrede, Kristen Denkers, Gene Bervoets, Flor Decleir, Joris Smit, Bert Luppes, Celion Church, Sijtze van der Meer, Maria Ciuffreda, Yvonne Schaap

‘Porcelain’, the first feature film by Jenneke Boeijink, has an interesting starting point: Dutch society as it has developed in recent decades, with good jobs for both spouses, and the ‘je ne sais quoi’ that material prosperity essentially adds nothing to binding happiness. The makers create an indefinable atmosphere, with a boy controlling a drone from a Rotterdam skyscraper and a soundtrack that predicts worse.

We learn from successive scenes who is who, what leads in the direction of a film like ‘Carnage’. The movie poster leaves little to chance. Polanskians seeps through the daily life of a family with misfortune, although it remains within Dutch proportions. Pa Paul (Vermeir) has to go to work at the Zuidas; the fact that seven-year-old Thomas (Van der Gronden) has given a classmate quite a few stitches is a point of attention for later.

Paul takes it up with the psychologist for his son, spinning on the chair. Again, the image of the cool businessman should not be turned on so much, or we should detect an interesting psychology of the father-son relationship. Mother Anna (De Boer) – university lecturer, seems to have a warmer personality, but shows avoidance behavior and does not get any further than a proposal to start laser gunning together.

Someone has to die soon, says the cynical viewer, but the pace is too slow for dramatic threat – even if something suddenly happens to Thomas (epilepsy?), which drives the two spouses apart. The film apparently has to hold up a mirror to us, a Dutch trait for which a film committee quickly pays more attention than the highly honored audience.

It can be said that De Boer and Vermeir do their best in the respective parent roles; however, we don’t know these people well enough to feel anything for them; every emotion is stifled in the act, caused by a macho who converts his incapacity into aggression, as well as in the editing. Then you should have dug deeper into the characters, to show why these people ever chose each other. There is no satisfactory settlement.