Just Friends is a very entertaining rom-com originally made for Dutch TV but the cute young leads guaranteed that it would make its way out into a LGBT world where hopeless romantics lap up well produced sentimental dramas like this
It is the tale of two college age men from totally different cultures who both have demanding mothers who are determined to have their say with who their sons fall in love with.
Dashingly handsome blond haired gym-bunny Joris (Josha Stradowski) has a mother (Tanja Jess )who indulges his expensive hobbies as substitute for giving affection. Neither of them have dealt with the death of Joris’s father, whilst he totes around the urn with his ashes, his mother is still bitter over the messy way their marriage ended. She tries to console herself with drink and plastic surgery, but neither of them actually make her happy.
Joris is much closer to his grandmother Ans (Jenny Arean) .who he dotes on, and on one of his visits to her, he discover that she has a new home help. Yad (Majd Mardo) has just quit his hard-partying life in Amsterdam and moved back home to live with his mother (Nazmiye Oral ) and father who immigrated from Syria when he was child. He refuses their pleas to go back to studying medicine and they are horrified that instead he has started working as a domestic cleaner.
There is an immediate chemistry between the two young man and you can literally see it sizzle on the screen. Encouraged by a mischievous Ans a date soon leads to this very delightful pair falling hook, line and sinker for each other. However both mothers are horrified …… not because they are gay ….. but because they cannot reconcile what is developing with their own long held bigoted views. It puts a great deal of pressure on both Joris and Yad, and they have to grapple with the realisation that they are now at the stage of their lives where they need to start making their own decisions, no matter how tough they seem.
Directed by Annemarie van de Mond from a script by Henk Burger, it is the two leads who steal the show with very convincing performances as men who simply couldn’t live without each other. Having said that the three women give them a run for their money, especially Tanja Jess as Joris’s melodramatic mother who manages to redeem herself before the final credits roll.
Just Friends is an entertaining crowd-pleaser of a movie ….. the type that always win Audience Awards at Film Festivals …… and this time the eye candy is not just Stradowski and Mardo (!) but also the rather stunning Dutch landscapes where the movie was shot.
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Labels: 2018, Dutch, nudity, romantic comedy
