lindarctica Honestly, there aren't many movies from my homecountry that i like, and if i hate one genre; it's sappy romances. This romance is however far from sappy! It uses humor, a grounded Dutch view on every topic, a good dose of sillyness and compelling characters to deliver a heartwarming story, full of important messages. Some cliché, some aren't, and some are plain in-your-face. The use of the Dutch famous holiday Sinterklaas makes it a movie that can be enjoyed with the whole family, although it is riddled with (sometimes not so) subtles innuendo's. There are a few things that maybe confuse foreign viewers, like what the Sinterklaas holiday actually is about. (no it's not santa clause) and little references to Dutch celebrity culture here and there.

Cha A wonderful film showing a bunch of crappy characters, a nonsense storyline that tries to imitate Shortcuts, with very easy and convenient relations between the characters, highly improbable, with hints of racism spread a bit everywhere, bathing in this soup of forced laughs and unrealistic events. The writer of this film has probably never lived a love story or lived in the real world at all. This film looks like a mixture of all the Walt Disney movies put together, in high speed, and the result is an absurd shitty movie.First: How nice it is that the man who runs the funeral home where the dead Santa is brought is also the lost son of the new Santa ? And that the young 16 year old guy who works on the parade for the dead Santa is also at the funeral home on the day of the funeral, but for his own dead father, and meets the daughter of dead Santa who's 3 times his age and tells her upfront that he wants to have sex with her ? What on earth did the writer think?? An really, a Prince can stop a plane while it's accelerating to take off ? Cheap humor, unrealistic characters, events, the worst plot ever... 1 star is actually generous.

virindra I heared a lot about this movie. I'm not a dutch film lover. But I like movies with Paul de Leeuw in it. He's so wrong, that makes him funny.But it was valentine's day and I had to buy my wife a present, so I thought why not the limited edition. Did I know that this movie was bad?! The movie is about relationships and how several people are somehow connected to each other. Is this a new concept? No it isn't. The actors and actresses sucked a lot! Wendy van Dijk was very funny in Ushi en Van Dijk, but in this movie she could show us that she cannot act at all.Even that sucker, Valerio, cannot act. But I knew that years ago when he had his dating show on tmf. That is very pity, but I still don't know why people think that a pretty boy can automatically act. It ain't so! To stand by this statement I will bring up the next thing: Paul the Leeuw is a very good actor, but very underrated. Paul is Like the dutch Robin Williams. I am a huge fan of Robin Williams, he is not an attractive guy, but he can act as the best! He can act comic roles, but also dramatic or even serious.At the moment in the film where the boyfriend of Paul runs out of his house in the snow to get his bike, there Paul stands with a beautiful smile. That was acting. Great acting is about not saying anything, but saying a lot with your facial impressions. Very well, if the rest of the movie was as good as that one moment, I had liked that movie a lot.But this movie was not about Paul de Leeuw, there were a lot of other bad actors and actresses in the movie that made this movie (for me) not worth watching a second time. Or at least I'll fast forward it to the moment of Paul in the snow.

erikweijers Who wouldn't want to unwrap Carice van Houten from her gift costume? She deserves her prince on the white horse because she comes to realize that she should believe in love. I also liked Anneke Blok, who plays a type that is rarely portrayed in Dutch movies: the busy mother who arranges everything and is heading towards a nervous breakdown. The gay couple is portrayed so matter-of-factly - not as some statement - that you are hardly aware that you are watching two men kiss each other on the lips.The first half hour of the movie is especially funny. The movie then loses some of its momentum, despite the rapid cuts between the story lines. Some of the jokes fall flat and one extra character is hastily introduced. The finale on snowy Santa Claus's birthday makes up for a lot, although I found it a bit too understated to serve as the climax and bold moral statement that this movie deserves.The multiple-story-line approach is a real balancing act and I applaud the filmmakers for their guts to set the bar so high. Also, I think to make a positive movie about love is in a way more daring than the cynical approach with a lot of cheap nudity, which since long has been the standard in Dutch movie-making. Judging by the numbers of visitors, the filmmakers have succeeded in making the audience believe in love, at least for a short while..