Director: John V. Knowles
Writer: BJ Lee
Cast: BJ Lee & Milla Jansen
Running time: 4mins
If you wanted a short video sketch to make light of the intricate absurdities of culture clashes between the Anglosphere and the Dutch, Let’sDoubleDutch’s Derek Mitchell has been perfecting the formula for years. Highlights from throughout the long, long list of Mitchell’s output include a discussion of the Calvinism which still deeply informs the Netherlands’ supposedly atheistic culture; and an American trying to console his Dutch husband following the 2024 election, which yielded a victory for the hard-right Geert Wilders – where the pair find themselves “switching roles”.
The observation is impeccable: rigorously perceptive, without becoming joyless, or belittling either side of the divide. Every culture gets its weird little quirks examined, in a way that builds to a punchline that leads us to realise perhaps Americans, Brits and the Dutch are not all so very different – however much phlegm we produce pronouncing a ‘g’.
Sadly, I am not reviewing LetsDoubleDutch. I am reviewing Going Dutch – directed by John V. Knowles, and written by and starring BJ Lee – and it does not contrast favourably. An arduous four minute watch, the single-scene skit sees middle-aged man Dylan White (Lee) inflict an excruciating conversation on exchange student Eva Bloom (Milla Jansen, giving a solid performance with what little she is given).
Dylan says that he and his wife (conspicuous in her absence from the entire thing – and perhaps only referenced at all to try and make this encounter less overtly creepy…) would like to learn more about Eva’s culture. He then immediately bumbles into playing the crass American oaf, assuming that “they speak German in Holland, right?”
This is not necessarily the wrong trope to play up to. I recently attended an American film screening about the Dutch resistance during WW2, which left the audience rolling in the aisles, as every ‘Dutch’ person on screen affected a truly terrible Hollywood German accent. So, there is clearly plenty to talk about when it comes to the perceptions of Americans, and how far they fall from reality. But in this particular case, Lee’s script fails to provide much authenticity to the scenario.
Many Dutch people (I won’t say all – but there aren’t many I’ve met this doesn’t seem to apply to) would absolutely resent the inference that the Netherlands is the same as Germany. Besides the occupation – and deportation of Jews to concentration camps – during the Second World War; and besides a sporting rivalry so fierce that Frank Rijkaard once earned the nickname ‘The Llama’ for flobbing a gob-full of phlegm into Rudi Voller’s perm; the differences between the two are obvious to anyone who has done even the most rudimentary research – let alone visited them.
In this context, not only claiming Dutch and German are the same, but acting kind of put out when you’re politely told otherwise, would certainly not end with a shrug or an eye-roll – as is the case here. The Netherlands is famous for its ‘direct’, or ‘blunt’ way of going about business, and justifiably in this case, that would lead to a bollocking you wouldn’t soon forget.
The conversation progresses, either way, with Dylan then asking to learn some basic Dutch phrases. After a laboured joke about many words sounding the same (hallo, dokter, etc.), he asks for a more difficult sentence – once about the canal system in Amsterdam – and when the word grachten emerges, hilarity was clearly supposed to ensue. Unfortunately, seeing Eva patiently try to coach her hapless American host to get the gh sound right, while he just morphs into the Swedish Chef with a sinus infection, isn’t particularly funny – or original. This kind of thing has been done to death – and while its heart may or may not have been in the right place (Lee has written his character to be a buffoon that we laugh at because of his lack of worldliness), there doesn’t seem to be any overriding arc to either character; no lesson to learn; no right of reply for Eva – and exploring that angle would probably have yielded some much funnier, more insightful lines.
Overall: 1.5 stars
Being shot flat, with bland lighting in an undressed apartment needn’t be an issue for an independent film, watching its budget. But when so little effort appears to have been put into the script, to bring its characters to life, or give us something new to engage our minds elsewhere, the tedious technical details also end up detracting from this short. But it’s the comedy, such as it is, that is the real downfall of Going Dutch – with punchlines so flat it feels like it’s a US sitcom that had its laughter track removed.