I had never heard of this movie until monday, when i found out it would be available for rent(dvd) the next day. (02/04/2003) So i decided to pick it up as the imdb info and comment looked quite promising.<br /><br />After watching the trailer on the dvd (before watching the actual movie) i thought, well this is going to be a good mysterious and a bit romantic movie. But boy, am i disappointed.<br /><br />Let me start with the positive things first. The cinematography is quite good, beautiful filming and shots at times. The acting (especially by the young Laurien Van den Broeck) is good aswell. Just 13 or 14? years old and already speaking fluent english including some french and german. I hope she will develop herself to a good actress in the future. But then we get to the plot, which is really really weak and terrible slow. *** SPOILERS AHEAD ***<br /><br />The basic story: A boy from afghanistan is used by some criminals to smuggle drugs(coke rolled in plastic, he eats it and keeps it in his stomage to poop it out at the destination) something goes wrong and the criminals shoot him 2 times. Thinking the boy is dead they run/drive off, he actually isn't and ends up wounded at the house of Claire. Claire finds him and decides to take care of him. The criminals ofcourse find out he isn't dead and start looking for him, when claire sees the criminals kill an innocent man she decides to go on the run with the boy.<br /><br />The first 35mins revolve around claire taking care of the boy at her house. This part is very slow and contains some unnecessary parts imho: the ~2mins intro /w credits where the camera flies over the woods. Nice cinematography and all, but what does it contribute to the movie? Thats right, nothing. Ok you know where the movie starts, (in the woods) but does it really have to take 2mins to show that? The movie shows having the girl her first period, contributes nothing to the story. The movie shows a 1min swimming scene, and i still don't understand what that part had to do with the story.<br /><br />After 35mins claire sees the criminals(which are looking for the boy) kill an innocent man and she goes on the run with the boy. (leaving her house) You would expect a nice thrilling follow up of the movie now. Too bad, it won't happen. The rest of the movie is as slow and stupid as the first part. They visit various weird locations, (including a convent) the typical dutch elements for a movie get thrown in again: The boy/girl start sniffing/using the coke(why?), the girl goes naked(thought i was looking at child porn here) and has sex with the boy, one of the criminals tries to rape(literally) the girl. And it contains alot of unnecessary parts, which only seem to be there to get the movie at the final 85min running time.<br /><br />I could probably go on for another 5mins, but i think i will stop here. Final conclusion is that the plot/story is very weak, pathetic and it ruins the movie.<br /><br />4/10 (cinematography, acting is good. But the plot takes the rating down bigtime)<br /><br />PS. I tried to get my 4$ back at the videostore, but no...... :)