TITLE: Strikdas
DIRECTOR: Stefan Nieuwoudt
CAST: Kaz McFadden, Leandie du Randt, Albert Maritz, Susanne Beyers, Gys de Villiers, Elsabe Daneel, Sean-Marco Vorster
CLASSIFICATION: 86 minutes
RUNNING TIME: PG
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
This is more of a character study than a romcom, seeing as the most interesting thing about it is the guy wearing the tititular bowtie, Vossie, played by Kaz McFadden.
While a possible romance lies at the heart of the story, the humour is so subtle as to be non-existent and not of the one-liner joke kind. But, what does keep your attention is the character arc and growth of the nebbish young Vossie.
Sent off to Stellenbosch University by his doting parents, Don “Vossie” Vorster is handed a bowtie by father Jagter Vorster (Maritz) with the admonishment that now is the time for him to live life to its fullest potential.
Skip forward 10 months and Vossie has found a place in the Stellenbosch Liberation Front, alongside two equally committed, if dweeby friends. But all they manage is to liberate one lonely rat, when he runs into Willemien (Du Randt), sobbing her eyes out after breaking up with her long-standing beau.
Grabbing a chance to bring home the most inappropriate boy possible, spoilt, manipulative Willemien drags Vossie off to her parents’ vineyard and parades him in front of her family and ex-boyfriend, AJ (Vorster).
The De la Harpe family come from old money and they turn their noses up at this overly friendly, gauche beanpole in his tatty bowtie. Sandra Kotze, especially, is fun as the grandma who sees trouble coming and delights in pointing it out, with much gesticulating with her cane, to anyone who will listen.
While Vossie may be a sweet and charming little dweeb, he isn’t stupid and he realises Willemien is using him, but he likes her, so he allows it up to a point. Willemien willfully tries to manipulate the situation, but slowly, oh so slowly, starts to see she might be in the wrong.
The possibility of a spark between Vossie and Willemien’s equally eccentric sister, Letitia (Andrea Pienaar), is left hanging, after a great scene which sets her up as a possibly twisted, boere-goth chic.
Director of photography Jacques Koudstaal makes the most of the beautiful setting provided by Vrede en Lust farm. His precise framing and excellent lighting make of the Stellenbosch vineyard an almost surreally beautiful backdrop. So too, Vossie’s parents’ house is a magical little oasis.
This isn’t really a going-to-university-to-find-yourself kind of film, since we see very little of university life or the way it exposes you to new ideas. So too, the Stellenbosch which these people live in is all pretty parties, tree-lined avenues, dappled starlight and is very much untouched by the rest of the world.
So much time is spent making sure that the viewer understands that Vossie is a charming geek that the storyline remains on the clichéd boy-meets-girl, girl-messes-it-up, how -can-boy-fix-it track. This pretty much forces each of the parent characters to behave in a prescribed way (too bad, because Maritz, De Villiers, Beyers and Daneel are capable of more).
If you haven’t watched this particular story play out hundreds of times in every other movie coming out of Hollywood thanks to Disney’s influence, this is going to be just such a sweet story. So, if your Afrikaans is good and you’re younger than 13, you are going to love it.
If you liked Semi-soet or Pad na Jou Hart, you will like this.