Seen as part of the Movies That Matter festival 2016 in The Hague, where it premiered for The Netherlands. We follow young lawyer Pauline who gives up a promising career and starts as a teacher in a suburban high school. Very enlightening were the hefty discussions between father and daughter, offering us a good insight in all arguments pro and con, more compact and more comprehensive than we could have imagined ourselves. Leaving this out would have resulted in a bare story, where we could only pity the main protagonist and dismiss her motives as being overly idealistic.
A huge problem for me remains that I cannot begin to grasp Paulina's motives, neither in the beginning to give up a potentially brilliant career, nor later on when continuing her tasks as a teacher after a rape incident, nor when deciding to keep the baby resulting from the rape. Also, when she has to identify suspected rapists standing in line in the police station, she pretends that she recognizes neither of them as one of the rapists, maybe a bit understandable given that all faces were known to her inside and outside class. But it becomes worse: at one point in a discussion with her father, when she states that if she would have been raped by her former boyfriend and got pregnant as a result, she would have chosen to abort the child, the very opposite of her stance in this case where she wants to keep it. I must have missed an important step in her logic, as this is utmost inconsistent.
It may be clear from the above that I could not identify myself with Pauline's motives, and could not help myself applauding all arguments made by her father about her career choice as well as her position in the gang rape and its aftermath. Possibly the script writers wanted to make a politically correct point that I cannot agree with. Anyway, seeing beyond Pauline's irritating logic this movie is very well made and the acting is also spotless.
A huge problem for me remains that I cannot begin to grasp Paulina's motives, neither in the beginning to give up a potentially brilliant career, nor later on when continuing her tasks as a teacher after a rape incident, nor when deciding to keep the baby resulting from the rape. Also, when she has to identify suspected rapists standing in line in the police station, she pretends that she recognizes neither of them as one of the rapists, maybe a bit understandable given that all faces were known to her inside and outside class. But it becomes worse: at one point in a discussion with her father, when she states that if she would have been raped by her former boyfriend and got pregnant as a result, she would have chosen to abort the child, the very opposite of her stance in this case where she wants to keep it. I must have missed an important step in her logic, as this is utmost inconsistent.
It may be clear from the above that I could not identify myself with Pauline's motives, and could not help myself applauding all arguments made by her father about her career choice as well as her position in the gang rape and its aftermath. Possibly the script writers wanted to make a politically correct point that I cannot agree with. Anyway, seeing beyond Pauline's irritating logic this movie is very well made and the acting is also spotless.