Kapsalon Romy starts out very good. You can feel the director knows how to tell a story and the performances are really good and subtle. Especially Romy, the girl is well directed. The tone and build up of the story are also good - subtle hints to where the film might go and a potential danger the girl might be blamed for stealing money from cash machine. And then it doesn't happen. All very good. But once Alzheimer disease starts to come to the fore the film becomes more and more of a cliche and the film starts to drag. The film seems endless and the film ends exactly the way you'd expect. The film tries to put the emphasis on small human drama, but the audience is not moved at all in the end and the second half of the film is just boring. The trip to Denmark is the equivalent of the cliche to show the sea for the last time to someone who is dying. Once they get off the boat in Denmark grandma Stine immediately meets someone she knows - which is quite uncredible on a population of 5.7M people. There's also the question for who this film is intended. Children won't enjoy the film as it is a film about someone who's falling ill. Adults will think it's a children film because of the child's perspective. As the issue is central, this seems to be foremost a TV-film.
Plot summary
Grandma Stine (Beppie Melissen) reluctantly agrees to look after granddaughter Romy (Vita Heijmen) when daughter Margot (Noortje Herlaar), who recently got divorced, is at work. Grandma, who is still actively working as a hairdresser, is struggling with the early stages of Alzheimer's. Romy doesn't like having to go to the hairdressing salon every day, but this changes when grandma Stine confides in her granddaughter, telling her about her increasing confusion. Romy realizes that grandma is not only taking care of her, she will have to take care of her grandma in return. The bond between grandmother and granddaughter grows stronger as grandma seems to change more and more: she is sweeter than before, easier, and she recounts tales of her childhood in Denmark. Romy helps grandma run the salon the best she can, but when they can no longer manage together, Romy comes up with a plan. She decides to make grandma's dearest wish come true.—Tamara Bos
March 09, 2023 at 04:34 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEBMovie Reviews
Great beginning but second half drags and ends in mediocrity
Wauw
What a touching moving. Simply beautiful. Tears in my eyes.
Young and Old
This is a good kid's movie, which is not my favorite genre. But this one avoids most of the usual kid-movie pitfalls. And it does cover an important topic, progressive old age dementia and could provide a useful gateway to talking about it with your kid, if relevant.
The child actor was very good, which is always a wild card in a kid's movie.
This is by no means a "must see", but it is much less painful to endure than most kid's movies.