Movie Thoughts: Hoe overleef ik mezelf? (2008)

• Released: June 25th, 2008
• Directed by: Nicole van Kilsdonk
• Running time: 1h 40min
• Rating 2.5/5

Synopsis

Teenager Rosa moves in with her mother's new boyfriend in Groningen, far away from her former home. Here, Rosa struggles to fit in at school, especially once she develops a crush on her art teacher. Rosa decided to create a new, cooler identity for herself, whom she names Rooz. But whether she's truly happy as Rooz is up for debate...

My Thoughts

It's...eh, not terrible. Just okay. I didn't hate it and had a fun time watching this with my nostalgic friend who had seen this movie as a kid, but as a movie I wouldn't say that it's very good. I know that Dutch movies in general have a pretty bad rep, but this does nothing to help to be honest. It's not too bad, but not good and can definitely be cringeworthy at times. The acting isn't great, either.

I guess I do like the message of being true to yourself and all that jazz, but that still doesn't make this a very good movie.

I also kinda wish that the character of Sam was called out more? He is Rosa's art teacher who forms a friendship with her, which leads to Rosa developing a crush on her. Now, of course a student can develop a crush on a teacher, and thankfully Sam doesn't reciprocate these feelings, but he's still kinda leading her on and in general his behavior towards her just feels kinda inappropriate as her teacher. He invites her at his house, grabs her by the shoulders, touches her hair, and hugs her (without her consent mind you). So yes, of course in the end he's not actually interested in her romantically (thank goodness), but his behavior is still very inappropriate as a teacher and it genuinely feel like he's leading her on for a bit. And I wish this was called out more. Nobody, not even the other teachers, are like "hey, maybe you shouldn't approach our students like this"? Not good.

I don't know, this is just a very dated movie. I wish it was better, but it just isn't.