The strangest thing about this movie is that you don't feel too sad about the boy's death (see earlier reviews). And that is because the chemistry between Kamerling and Tuinier (the father and his son) works so good and is so natural, that you feel they have lived a lifetime, which is indeed very satisfying.
Even stranger is the story of the writer, Boudewijn Büch, now deceased, who for years could maintain the fiction that he had indeed lost a son. If you would only take the book as evidence then you would agree that only a father in grief could tell such a powerful story. And the film seems to underwrite that notion.
There is some similarity with "Pay it Forward", and Haley Joel Osmend is quite the (little) actor, but "A small, blond death" is much more natural.
All in all an excellent and moving movie.
On a sad note: in 2010 Antonie Kamerling himself (who played the father) stepped out of this life; too young to be burdened with such a depressing end.
Even stranger is the story of the writer, Boudewijn Büch, now deceased, who for years could maintain the fiction that he had indeed lost a son. If you would only take the book as evidence then you would agree that only a father in grief could tell such a powerful story. And the film seems to underwrite that notion.
There is some similarity with "Pay it Forward", and Haley Joel Osmend is quite the (little) actor, but "A small, blond death" is much more natural.
All in all an excellent and moving movie.
On a sad note: in 2010 Antonie Kamerling himself (who played the father) stepped out of this life; too young to be burdened with such a depressing end.