Movie Thoughts: Joe Speedboot (2026)

• Released: March 12th, 2026
• Directed by: Sam de Jong
• Running time: 1h 38min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A disabled teenager named Fransje befriends the wild Joe Speedboat, who is full of dreams of adventures.

My Thoughts

Not a movie I was particularly looking forward to seeing (because Dutch movies don't have the best rep), but when I saw it came out and had nothing to do, I figured why not just go see it.

And as far as Dutch productions go this is pretty solid. It's small-scale, but that's totally okay for the story it's trying to tell. We just get to see the life and friendships of Fransje, and that's honestly enough. 

I particularly liked the characters of Fransje and Joe in this, they just have this really sweet friendship from the moment they meet and it's just nice to see. I love how a cool tough guy like Joe never treats Fransje poorly or has to learn to overcome any ableism or anything like that: He just sees Fransje as a good friend from day one and that's cool. 

I also liked PJ, who is another friend of Joe and Fransje, as well as Fransje's love interest. They work well as a trio and their interactions were great.

If I do have an issue, it's that I think that PJ's and Joe's backstories could've been touched on a bit more. PJ is an enjoyable character, but she isn't super deep or complex. Joe has a complex backstory which is mentioned once or twice, but it's never gone fully into. Since Joe is basically our deuteragonist I was expecting to get just a bit more insight into his character and how his backstory affected him.

Some aspects the movie brings up are also just randomly dropped on a whim. There's a portion of the movie dedicated to watching Fransje make brikets, only for that to be dropped. There's a large subplot about Fransje becoming an arm-wrestler with his one good arm, but once he loses a competition this is never brought up again (so it just feels kinda pointless).

I also feel that there's some missing context between the "here and now" portion of the movie (basically 95% of the entire thing) and the epilogue, which takes place when Fransje and his friends are all adults and moving on with their lives. 

Basically in the epilogue we learn that PJ suddenly got together with her high school sweetheart (Christof) again and married him, even though last time we saw him he'd moved to the United Kingdom and he was never shown coming back and rekindling his relationship with PJ, in fact their relationship throughout the movie was never all that close or well-built up so her choosing to marry Christof in the end felt kinda like it came out of nowhere. Also, she has way more of a developed bond with Fransje or heck even Joe, so her choosing for either one of them would've made much more sense. So I just feel that the epilogue was a bit much information that contrasts what was set up before, to dump on the audience without any buildup. 

Overall I wouldn't consider this a perfect movie, but if you're in the mood for a feelgood film about a strong friendship I do recommend this one.