Just Say Yes, review of the Dutch original Netflix movie

Just Say Yes

A Dutch production is not widespread on the main streaming services at our disposal, even if for the tones, the color and the lightness it would seem a good American comedy. The protagonist is the former swag Yolanthe Cabau, born in Spain and formerly in the cast of Pain & Gain - Muscles and money, recently divorced from the Dutch footballer Wesley Sneijder, the model and actress becomes the protagonist of a tragicomic film like If you run away you marry, where the problematic it is more or less the same: a marriage gone not quite as planned. Just Say Yes is therefore the title that landed on Netflix on April 2, just in time to bring us a breath of summer preview on our screens, with an easy, light plot and the right glam to spend these days of celebration on our sofa. Let's find out what this abundant hour and a half of film tells us, where the beautiful actress is joined by a Dutch cast and therefore little known to us, including Huub Smit, Jim Bakkun, Nick Golterman, Noortje Herlaar and Kim-Lian van der Meij .

Just Say Yes, a fresh comedy waiting to be discovered

Lotte is a young woman as beautiful as she is romantic, the protagonist of a sentimental misfortune that no woman would ever want to experience: after five years of history with her fiancé, she is left on the very day of the wedding, and in a way we can't find out until the end of the film. In fact, we are given a taste of the story in Forrest Gump style, that is we see in the very first minutes of the film the young woman, now disheveled and with lost elegance, who runs away from the wedding venue and ends up on a bench to tell her story to a young man. who just found out he got chlamydia.

If the opening of the film has a tragicomic flavor, the rest of the film will not be outdone. With a clever flashback, alternating with some flash-forward to return "to the bench", Lotte tells the story of her from the beginning of her story, which certainly did not go as she already expected in the conditions. In fact, she, as incurable sentimental as she is, hoped that her betrothed would ask her for her hand with some exuberant and unconventional initiative, but so she didn't go. The important thing, however, is the result, they say, and therefore, once they are officially engaged, the preparations begin: from the dress, to the details of the ceremony, reviewing the various members of the bride's family, her best friends and work colleagues. .

Lotte works in a colorful and bizarre television studio, and will have among her colleagues not only her sister Estelle, who shamelessly tries with her boss and never misses any opportunity to demonstrate her exuberance, but also a series of unlikely people, a caricature of themselves. Moreover, one of the challenges she has to face is precisely that of being able to get into the wedding dress, to be precise that of her grandmother, so her mission is really delicate and important. But never like the moment in which she is downloaded, or at least tried, live on television during the television program conducted in the studios where both Lotte and her, now ex, future husband, it seems. The video is then shared on YouTube, where ironically manages to be successful and total a million views. In addition to injury, insult.

Sympathy and irony

Lotte's events are followed slavishly, thanks to a plot that proves to be absolutely light, sometimes predictable, but also enjoyable, thanks to a series of clichés that allow us to be spectators of a comedy probably not exceptional for originality, but certainly well constructed and designed for a purely female target and a lover of this kind of products. Furthermore, there is also the mixture of "real life" and social content, as already seen in another Netflix production a few months ago, Emily in Paris, thanks to the presence on the screen of reproductions of content taken purely from Instagram and YouTube.

The production methods and languages ​​are therefore decidedly fresh, as well as the interweaving of the plot is quite linear and, as we said, quite predictable but not too much, with the quarrels that arise between Lotte and her sister Estelle, the meeting -clash with the new boss of the protagonist, her tragicomic fantozzi misadventures at work and the ploy of the missed marriage, an initial story that hides much more than we can imagine. Furthermore, the acting of the protagonists, although they are not well-known faces in our collective imagination, is really good. Furthermore, this is able to satisfy our expectations as spectators looking for something light, presenting a story halfway between a revolution of the protagonist, in search of redemption after a hard abandonment, and a sort of Cinderella who tries to find happiness (also) within a circle of people who, although not so hard and heavy, do not support it as it should and deserves.

In conclusion

Just Say Yes is what Netflix expects the viewer to say when seeing this movie - just say yes. In a still complicated historical moment with unpleasant prospects, we just have to switch off with a really nice title, an unpretentious pink comedy, if not those of snatching a smile and giving us an hour and a half of tender, tragicomic stories. and shot with good directorial quality.

Finally, this is an excellent opportunity to give space to rarely talked about productions, such as those by director and screenwriter Appie Boudellah, returning after F * ck de liefde (2019), also a Dutch romantic comedy with a reputation almost absent in Italy. Could this be the right time to try to conquer a slice of the Italian public? We can only say yes.