Love Life – 3*

If you can ‘stylise’ a film about cancer, director Reinout Oerlemans’ Love Life would be it. Interestingly, this Dutch film was originally called Stricken (2009), which doesn’t particularly seem to fit the sexy, hedonistic stance that the film portrays, and certainly wouldn’t have the majority of punters rushing to the cinema to see it.

It’s about two young professionals, Stijn and Carmen, played by two very attractive actors, Barry Atsma and Carice van Houten of Black Book fame, who work in the advertising industry and have the perfect life. They are young, successful and wealthy, living the Amsterdam dream, but move to Amstelveen when they have their first child. Then their whole world stops when Carmen is diagnosed with cancer, and the life they knew starts spiralling out of control. Well, it’s on a destructive course before that, as stylishly suited-and-booted Stijn just can’t keep it in his pants. He’s like a footballer gone wild, living it up across the globe in contempt of his family life – wannabe WAGS sigh.

The whole affair is a little unsettling at times, with the film being a perplexing cross between a weepy drama, a dance video, and a TV commercial with lots of beautiful people cavorting around in it. Indeed we get the idea that the protagonists ‘love life’ so much they feel the need to show us in full throttle, partying and bonking the night (and day) away. The trouble is this rather garish comparison between frivolous and serious matters doesn’t quite mesh at times, with the more sobering note being watered down. It’s like watching two different films. Love Life then moves onto controversial territory, highlighting the subject of euthanasia, whilst still showing Stijn sewing his wild oats in desperation that death might rub off on him. It’s a head-scratching mix of events.

The element that manages to hold the plot together and add some resemblance of purpose to events is the moving performance by van Houten as Carmen, coping with living with cancer, then having to face her mortality and the biggest decision of her life. Van Houten gives a delicate but inner strength to her character that sways our opinion on Carmen throughout the film, swinging from unsympathetic to sympathetic from one minute to the next. Like Stijn, who is portrayed as the villain of the piece, Carmen is also flawed, and this keeps her character grounded and non-melodramatic – a welcome relief to the posturing and compulsive clotheshorse, Stijn, who seems a little far-fetched at times, even if his torment is evident. Still, Atsma is very aesthetically pleasing to watch and provides the film’s sex appeal, but van Houten, even in the last throws of life, still radiates a tragic beauty that is compelling to watch.

Love Life is very much like a contemporary Love Story with bundles of style and an erratic pace, complete with action sequences and a controversial topic as add-ons. Its underlying sentiment is in danger of being all-consumed by its desperate need to look sharp, slick and ‘full of life’ that Oerlemans seems to remember its serious tone at the end, and over-emphasise it, but still makes events look like the setting for a home improvement ad. Thankfully, van Houten supplies the emotion that is needed to tug on the heartstrings, and in conjunction with her screen presence, Atsma’s character shows his anguish. However, we still aren’t given enough reason to like Stijn – only in the superficial looks sense, so Oerlemans’ final father-daughter scene does not have the full impact that it should. This is a film for fans of the talent involved, but is also a nice little contemporary offering on complex relationships and how they are affected by life and death decisions.

3/5 stars

By L G-K