Feature film
Tough
Jan Rap en z'n maat
Ine Schenkkan · 1989
Synopsis
A home has just opened in Amsterdam for teenagers whom no one wants any more. Those who look after them have just left university and have little experience. Pregnant girls arrive, an aggressive drug addict, a hysterical girl, a strapping boy prone to fits: the young people shout, steal and smash everything that lies around, and let slip in snatches the rape, incest or street life they come from. Despite the quarrels, a solidarity forms, until the day the home is at risk of closing.
Context
The film adapts a book by Yvonne Keuls published in 1977, which had already given rise to a play. The author supported the film on its release, but has said since that it had become a different story: the novel is set in the hippie era, the director took the story out of its period, and the main character is no longer the same, the role having been shifted towards an actor then in the public eye. The film was produced by the same company as Judith Herzberg's wedding film, in the same year.
Who it is for
A hundred and eighteen minutes in Dutch, and there is a lot of shouting. It is worth knowing that none of these teenagers' miseries is spared the viewer, and that the house falls apart as the film goes on.
Prizes and reception
Seventy-three thousand admissions and a failure on both counts, commercial and critical; the film was criticised for not holding laughter and drama together.