Pink Moon Review
Pink Moon (2022) Film Review from the 21st Annual Tribeca Film Festival, a movie directed by Floor van der Meulen, written by Bastiaan Kroeger and starring Julia Akkermans, Johan Leysen, Eelco Smits, Anniek Pheifer, Sinem Kavus, Glenn Coenen, Jenny Hsia, Claire Schuyffel and Lolu Ajayi. Filmmaker Floor van der Meulen’s new Dutch film, Pink Moon, isn’t particularly disappointing in the way it reveals the details of its story line. However, the movie just seems to meander a bit too frequently. It sometimes plods along in directions that don’t lead its audience members anywhere too memorable. Too many times in offbeat stories like the one Pink Moon presents, the ending comes along feeling like it was nothing too difficult to predict. Here in the new movie, the conclusion is rather emotionally involving but getting there is an indirect route filled with a lot of detours (or rather unnecessarily complicated plot developments).
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With that being said, the film’s two main stars, Julia Akkermans and Johan Leysen are outstanding as a middle aged woman and her seventy-something year-old father who, as the film opens, reveals he is ready to end his life. There’s no really noteworthy reason for this revelation. Not initially at least. Perhaps, the dad’s just tired of life. While the movie reveals why the father wants to die in a key scene, the revelation doesn’t seem to warrant the way the dad is going about bringing closure to his life. A film from a few years ago presented the idea of a mother who wanted to die against the wishes of her family. Susan Sarandon starred in the dramatic movie which was called Blackbird. I liked Blackbird a lot and felt there were genuine reasons that Sarandon’s character wanted to end her life. I am not sure I truly felt the despair Leysen’s dad character, Jan, in Pink Moon seems to be experiencing and this is certainly no fault of the performance. Akkermans’s character of Iris, Jan’s daughter, is sort of a quirky character who seems to be too much of a written character at times rather than a genuine person. She’s intelligent and does well at her job but in a scene where she talks to a prospective buyer of her family home, she comes off as odd and too offbeat to be believable. Some of her character traits didn’t ring true to me. She, at one point, starts to perform oral sex on a man she meets at a bar. Interestingly enough, she thinks that her dad may stay alive if he experiences sex again. That would be a concept that could have worked but Jan dismisses that notion entirely and it never takes flight. There is another character in the story who plays a central role. It’s Ivan, Iris’s brother who is played rather well by Eelco Smits. Ivan doesn’t always understand Jan nor does Jan always understand Ivan. This sibling relationship is conveyed effectively and makes for some interesting scenes throughout the picture. Iris develops a lot during the movie from quirky and offbeat to coldly intelligent and self aware. This transformation that Akkermans conveys on screen should certainly be commended. Iris desperately tries to save her dad from his plan to die. She tries to show him the beauty in life through dancing with him or by taking him on a snowy getaway which could bring out his will to live. As Jan, Leysen can also be extremely forceful as a performer and makes the character one who knows what he wants and doesn’t seem to want to budge. There are some emotional scenes between Akkermans and Leysen, especially towards the end of the film. Akkermans truly shines bright as an actress here in her complex role which makes us truly believe that Iris loves her dad. She isn’t always likable as a character but she makes us invested in the scenario the film presents to the audience. Pink Moon is the type of movie that could get a lot of praise. It takes a lot of risks. I’m not sure that, for me, all those risks paid off the way I would have liked them to. There is the matter of the film’s ending where Iris literally closes the curtains on her doubts and learns to accept the things she cannot change. I won’t tell you what happens but the movie does have an emotionally involving conclusion. Floor van der Meulen has created the kind of movie that will divide audiences and I respect that. This film leaves plenty of room for discussion afterwards and those are the types of movies that stand out more than run of the mill blockbusters. Pink Moon is a hard film to wholeheartedly recommend because its themes are mostly likely going to be an acquired taste. They are certainly not for everyone. Akkermans stands out as a truly gifted actress in this meandering film, though, and Leysen is brave for creating the character he brings to life. If you liked Blackbird, which was about a mother trying to end her life against the wishes of her family, you could be accessible to the dark themes Pink Moon presents. Rating: 6.5/10 Leave your thoughts on this Pink Moon review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more Tribeca Film Festival news can visit our Tribeca Film Festival Page, our Film Festival Page, and our Film Festival Facebook Page. Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, and Flipboard.
