De terugreis

The Return Journey is a new drama comedy directed and partly written by Jelle de Jong, director of the first Bon Bini Holland and Weg van jou.

Jaap (Martin van Waardenberg) has been together with his partner Maartje (Leny Breederveld) for almost 50 years. Jaap has also become a little more bitter over the years and Maartje is increasingly suffering from dementia. Despite these setbacks, the two decide to go to Spain to visit an old friend.

With this film, the director and co-writer show that Dutch films do not always have to be the same kind of romantic comedy, but there is also room for more serious drama comedies like this. At the beginning of this month, for example, the film Buenas Chicas was released with characters who also travel to Spain, but ended up as a well-known standard romantic comedy filled with clichés. It's nice to see that a film like The Return Journey shows that other types of films can also come from the Netherlands.

This film is also more about an older couple, who have a whole life history together and still carry it with them. This also makes them more interesting characters to keep following for about an hour and a half. Due to the limited playing time, the balance between drama and comedy is sometimes lost and the director and co-writer do not always seem to know exactly which of the two genres to highlight most.

Despite this, Martin Waardenberg and Leny Breederveld manage to portray their roles well in the film. Martin comes across well as a more sullen, older man who prefers to take it easy, but who carries a touch of dry humor. Leny then plays a more cheerful old lady, who still wants to try everything, but suffers from an early form of dementia, which means she no longer always knows exactly what she is doing or should do. This can provide comical moments, but can also seem a bit worrying, because dementia should not really be something you can always laugh about.

I went to the cinema two times to watch this movie, it is hartwarming, realistic and tells you what true love and life is all about. About chasing your dreams, caring for each other, having shared memories and realizing that life is short and if you want to accomplish your dreams you better do it today.

Martin van Waardenburg and Leny Breederveld excellently portray an elderly couple who are living a quiet life in a small village in the Netherlands. It appears that Maartje, the woman, is experiencing the early stages of Alzheimers disease. When they receive a letter from an old friend in Spain who is terminally ill, Maartje persists in them going there. The journey is hartwarming.

I absolutely encourage everyone to watch this movie.

I usually don't write reviews on Imdb but I felt compelled to do so for this movie.

The two lead actors are truly sublime. The story is taken from life.

Two people who have been together for decades and used to have the most wonderful adventures have ended up in a boring life where almost nothing happens. Purchasing an easy chair is a highlight of their existence.

Until they receive a message from an old dear friend from Spain who has cancer and has ended up in a hospice. He invites them to drop by and have one more gin with him.

The man of the house is not keen. Maartje, his wife, cannot let go of the idea. She starts experiencing more and more things that are due to her incipient dementia. Something both she and her husband are not yet willing to accept.

In the end, they decide to take on the trip to Spain in their old car anyway. Along the way, all the memories of the past come up. And Jaap's acceptance that his wife is not and will not be the same takes place as well.

Beautifully acted. Moving, funny, real, sweet, relatable. Highly recommended!

Martin van Waardenberg is a Dutch comedian, who has been working well in recent years as an actor and even as a director. For example, with his latest film Ome Cor, van Waardenberg played the leading role and directed the film himself. In De Terugreis we also see Leny Breederveld, who also played together with van Waardenberg in Ome Cor. Breederveld is perhaps best known as Judge Helma from the successful television series The Lice Mother. The direction is in the hands of Jelle de Jonge who has already worked with both. De Jonge wrote the story together with Marijn de Wit, where both actually make their writers' debut. Only de Wit wrote something with the short Wes from 2009 before, but we can't really count that when it comes to a full feature film. Anyway, that must be fine with someone like van Waardenberg in your film, of course.

The story is about a couple who have stuck in the past. Jaap in particular has trouble keeping up with his time. If one day he receives a letter from Luis from Spain that he is dying, his wife Maartje wants to travel to Spain immediately, but Jaap doesn't feel like it at all. Maartje is starting to have dementia, only Jaap doesn't want to see that. Where one might expect a thoroughbred comedy, De Terugreis is certainly not. Although there is humor in the film here and there, De Terugreis has become a drama film about aging and how to deal with dementia. At first, Jaap blames Maartje for doing certain things on purpose to snar him. You would think that Jaap is a short-sighted lamlul, but it soon becomes quite clear that Jaap is full of fear and does not know how to deal with the situation and the woman he has been with for 42 years.

Jaap has also been afraid of driving in the car for years and if Jaap decides to travel to Spain anyway in his more than 30-year-old car, he has to defy the speed of the highways. Of course this does not go as he had hoped, which brings with it a number of comical situations. When they eventually drive through France, they get to places where they used to be, but which have completely changed. This is assisted by beautiful images of the French landscape, but we have seen that more often in films of course, take the film Take Me with you from last year. The Return Journey is another film of course and also has a more serious undertone. It is mainly the chemistry between van Waardenberg and Breederveld that really show that they can act very well.

De Terugreis manages to move the viewer with a smile and a tear. What is clever is that the film does not choose the easy way. It's a drama about dealing with a woman with dementia, where the partner doesn't know how to deal with that. Jaap is stuck to routine and the past, and looking outside the news to want Jaap to have as little to do with the outside world as possible. Once on a trip, it takes the two life partners past the most beautiful places and they pass changed places that they have visited in the past on their trip to Spain. The chemistry between Martin van Waardenberg and Leny Breederveld is insanely good and will not leave you as a viewer untouched. One thing is certain and that is that De Terugreis will be difficult to beat for the Dutch films to come this year.

I just needed a place where I could place my heartfelt "thank you" for making this film somewhere where it might be read by the makers. This movie made me cry, it made me laugh, it made me nostalgicly melancholy, it made me warm.

Thank you!

I would advice anyone with parents in this age category (70+?) to go watch. Especially if either one of the actors reminds you of one of your own parents. Go watch and be reminded of how beautifull and rare and precious all their typicalness is. Living in their own 'age-bubble' experiencing everything based on their 1950s? Blueprint of life. So different from you and yet so familiair and you can probably already imagine you will become the same. Enjoy their grumpyness and their stubborness; admire their kind of courage as an answer to their understandable fears. And be amazed at what a life-long commitment to another person translates to.

Go watch.