The Debut (1977)

Just perfect...

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This woman's lib director made this debut with a full lengt movie, along with her two main actors, Marina de Graaf and Gerard Cox. The story is not new ; young girl falls in love with elderly man. Why Nouchka van Brakel choose this (lousy) script to make her debut movie is beyond my comprehension. Perhaps something that was lingering from her own past made her decide to do this terrible flick. The directing sucks, the acting is cardboard character trying to remember their lines, subsequently the dubbing is also awfull; a chance missed: perhaps in dubbing they could ad some sincerity and believability, Alas, this is a movie to quickly forget. I gave it two stars instead of one, because the young actress, Marina de Graaf shows some attempts to act naturally, her mother in this "movie" gives away one of many of her bad performances in Dutch films. The man this young girl falls in love with, is mediocre and let you think why the hell a young girl would fall in love with him . Thinking, the director of this exploitation maovie calls herself a Feminist, you wonder why she adds so many nude scenes of a young girl into her debut. Stinks !

Appalled bij seeing pictures of a pretty young girl in cinemapromotion, only to draw more people to this very mediocre movie, directed by a self pronounced feminist director. Mind you, not appalled by the pictures, but by the way this female director made "this movie". . It is not even a mediocre coming of age movie, it is pure exploitation from a director who wanted obviously to make a big name with this movie. That she casted her own daughter as well in this movie also does not help at all. Pure garbage !!

Daring theme. I like that. A sexual relationship between an adult and a child/youngster. And without showing the child as merely a victim of an adult predator. The sex is wanted and enjoyed by both partners. At the same time, the movie does also not fall in the other extreme of showing the girl as basically a seductress. At the end, she can be seen as the victim of the relationship, but not because she was too young or too experienced to understand about sex. She is a victim because she was dreaming of more, of a lasting relationship. While he neither can nor wants to leave his wife. She is a victim like so many mistresses of married men are victims.Daring theme, yes. But when one looks further, little more positive can be said. The movie does not succeed in making the characters live. For a part this has to do with the plot, that keeps looking at the relationship from the outside, we do not really get to the inside of the characters, which is especially pitiful in the last third of the movie. But most is lost simply through bad acting and directing. Most obvious is this in the girl who plays Carolien's girlfriend. She seems to just be saying her lines, without any realization that these lines have some kind of emotional meaning. And that she should use a tone of voice that fits that meaning. And Marina de Graaf (Carolien) and several other supporting actors make a similar type of mistake. All in all, the movie is too much TELLING its story instead of SHOWING it.The idea is good, and has the possibility of giving a movie that leads to moral discussions amongst its viewers. But then one would need to give the viewer some interest in its characters first. And that's where this movie fails miserably. One can even wonder whether it HAS any characters.