Not gonna lie: NEVER have I had such difficulty watching a movie. The experience was emotionally devastating and actually physically painful. Never would I have dreamed I could see a film worse than Steel Magnolias, Beaches, Fried Green Tomatoes, and My Girl combined...and yet here I am, having just seen this one. I am not okay. I am utterly destroyed. My ginger excuse for a soul has been crushed, wrecked, shattered, pulverized (I wish I were exaggerating what a mess this made of me.)The power to have this effect derives from the leading lady; Carice is truly a phenomenal actress. I've become a huge fan of hers. She makes you believe everything. She makes you feel EVERYTHING. Deeply. She can say SO MUCH without even speaking a word. She catapults this script, which is basically an automatic recipe for "heartbreaking," to absolutely heart-annihilating. She herself has a singular beauty as well as a natural aura of purity, innocence, and goodness that helps with parts such as this. (That there's still so much more tremendous talent within that teeny-tiny frame of hers--musically, for instance--could almost be infuriating were she not so lovable.) Seriously...I mean, Carmen's frequent vomiting had me feeling nauseous--NOT because I'm squeamish about that (I'm not; the needles are what normally bother me), but due to the empathy for her. Heck, the whole final third or so of the movie had me feeling that way (and, needless to say, just sobbing uncontrollably.) The premise is nearly unbelievable with this casting and writing, actually. If this Carmen is your wife, how on Earth does the desire to be with anyone else ever even enter into your head at all? If she falls gravely ill, how is your only thought not to be her constant loving support & caretaker as you fight the disease together with everything you've got? The main plotline here is harrowing enough; the secondary one that involves Stijn running back and forth from her to a club to another woman...it's incredibly maddening, and altogether it's murder. He never completely abandons her, but you can't stop thinking furiously and desperately of how much better she and their daughter deserve. Even trying to look at it as "He can't handle the torment and needs to escape with someone who isn't sick," I cannot begin to justify his behavior--particularly since he was *always* a disgusting adulterer. From the very start, she deserved someone with the loyalty, integrity, fortitude, and pure love to stay by her side through thick and thin. He was simply unworthy of this extremely over-tolerant woman. That he always came back to her (for as long as he could) doesn't excuse his cheating. It merely makes him a somewhat better husband than he could've been. The whole thing hurts so much it's hard to think about.Would I watch this again? Oh man. More like, "Could I bear to?" Just thinking about it gets me going all over again. So if I wanted to torture myself that way, I'd have to gather all my strength...I know! My rewrite of this film will include a new role--that of a close friend for poor Carmen, who will berate that dirtbag for his adulterous ways (Carmen may accept it but she does not--especially while her friend is ill.) This person will be what Carmen deserved, bringing her to and from the hospital and staying with her and taking care of her and making sure *everything* possible is done to save her, as well as making sure Carmen knows how loved she is. Of course it ends with remission and finding a new, faithful, totally committed man who knows how to love somebody and is worthy of her. ^^ Maybe Stijn learns something from the experience and becomes a changed man; maybe not. Yay! There we go. Good stuff. I can feel my soul reconstituting as we speak.(Also, did I include spoilers? Well, better safe than sorry, right?)

And all the sudden everyone in the Netherlands knew Kluun (the author). He wrote this perfect and heart breaking story based on his own life. Kluun lost his wife of cancer and cheated on her to get distraction. The book and therefor the movie are about struggle against cancer, if you need to hear one sentence.I was happily surprised after I saw the movie, which is based on the book. All the emotions you feel when reading, you feel the same emotions when watching the movie, which is a huge compliment. The actors bring the characters of the book to life and they do it in a brilliant and subtle way. The movie is beautiful and a justice to the book and the author. It's just as pure and honest as the author has meant for the book. So, forget who are acting or directed it, just watch the movie.The original Dutch title is 'Komt een vrouw bij de dokter' (the English version of the book is named 'Love Life', the movie 'A woman goes to the doctor'), which needs an explanation. The sentence is the first line of one of those typical Dutch jokes. Kluun explains that he wished that the story of him and his wife would have ended up like one of these terrible jokes.The story is about a young and successful married couple, Stijn and Carmen and their daughter Luna. Then all the sudden, after a visit to the PG ('dokter' or 'huisarts' in Dutch), followed by the hospital, Carmen is diagnosed with breast cancer. No need to say that their beautiful world they live in, collapses. While Carmen is starting chemo therapy and so on, Stijn does what he does best to deal with this situation he can't control; cheating on his wife.Stijn has cheated before, which Carmen knew. She has confronted him in the past and he told her the truth. Now he's the supporting husband during the day, but at night time he turns back to his old habits; having sex with other women. Again, Carmen knows, but can handle the fact that her husband isn't the monogamous type. She knows that those women aren't important and at the end of the day Stijn will always come back to her. And to Stijn, other women are just entertainment, one night stands, women he doesn't need to see again, it's just sex.But things get worse for Carmen and after losing her breast and hair, she isn't the confident woman as she was before and she doesn't feel comfortable anymore with Stijn cheating on her. During that period, Stijn gets to know Roos. It started with sex, but he realizes he wants more from Roos. And because of Roos, he stays away more often. But while Stijn is with Roos, Carmen prepares Luna that she'll be gone. Carmen realizes she wants and needs the full attention of her husband to be there for her and their daughter. She asks him to quit cheating to work on their marriage. Stijn agrees, but things are getting worse and worse with Carmen, which means it's getting more difficult for Stijn to handle it. To handle life with a dying Carmen, Luna to support and the sexy Roos he desperately wants at the same time.The movie is Dutch, but has Enlgish subtitles. Please, take the effort to watch it (or buy at least the book). You'll be ended up in tears, it's worth it. I can recommend it and I would even urge people to do so. Often the partners of the one with cancer are pushed to the background, while they also have to struggle just as hard although in a different way). You can be narrow minded and judge Stijn, but in the end it's a way of surviving.I saw the movie with my husband who haven't read the book. We both ended up in tears and we both needed some time to process what we've just seen.SPOILER ALERT: Stijn supports his wife the best way he can. But he ends up with Roos again, despite the promise he made his wife. Ofcrouse these 2 life and work won't combine, which results in a huge fight with Carmen. At that point he realizes that Carmen's life is too short to split it with Roos. Although by now he loves Roos, he chooses to support Carmen and Luna for the rest of her life. After a short period of time, Carmen can't handle it anymore and decides she wants to commit euthanasia. After this very emotional moment of saying goodbye and let each other go. Stijn then wants Roos to be part of the funeral. Even though it might started for the sex, he also realizes that his marriage probably would have ended in a divorce if it wasn't for Roos. Because of his relationship with Roos and Roos's support, he had the strength to support and love his wife till the very end.In real life, Stijn (Kluun) is still with Roos (Naat). His 2nd daughter (of Kluun and Naat) is named Roos after the character Roos. The book is dedicated to his first wife Juud (Carmen in the book) and Naat.

This is the movie of the famous Dutch book 'komt een vrouw bij de dokter'. The book describes the true events that the author (Kluun) experienced when his wive is diagnosed with breast cancer that eventually takes her life.First of all, this movie is as dull as a one-in-a-thousand soap operas on TV. Second, the main character is unsympathetic. You cannot make a movie around someone you cannot identify with. You can try, but only few directors can pull off such a thing. Reinout Oerlemans surely can not.The movie tries to be dramatic, but never even comes close to real drama. Its almost slapstick. For example the scene where Carmed hears about her illness from the doctor conveys no drama or emotion at all! Its also rushed into the movie. No character built-up, no nothing.The main character is a person you cannot have sympathy for. His wive gets cancer, he can't handle it and runs away. He cheated on his wife when she was still healthy, so he surely cheats on his wife when she gets sick. He is an asshole, but his wife is even more stupid because she likes him no matter what.The movie only revolves around Stijn, his wife Carmen is actually a card-board persona that has no depth at all. All her decisions remain unexplained, yet she is the one dealing with a cheating husband, and cancer. We must make notice here that the book only tells Stijns version of the story. Carmen is dead so we cannot ask her anything. Kluun (the author of the book) cleverly left out all that is interesting.In the end of the movie Carmen dies and I liked it. She deserved not to live in my opinion. Stijn deserves his wife dying on him, because he never really cared about her in the first place. His wife dead, makes sure he cannot harm her even more. He never loved his wife, I can tell you that. The author even tries to make money out of her death by writing a self-indulged book and trying to sell his whining and his childish behavior. This man never deserved his book being turned into a proper film, I am glad it didn't.I know people that have been in the same position as Stijn, and they did not behave like this animal in the first place. They did not write silly books trying to get the attention of the mass-public: "look me, I am pathetic. My wife has cancer, look me. Look me, my wife has cancer, I am pathetic, shall we have sex?".The only interesting parts in this movie were the sex-scenes. As traditional Dutch cinema describes, this movie contains a lot of unnecessary nude-scenes that funny enough contain a lot of breasts. Carice "Look my breasts" van Houten does what she does: flash her breasts, like she does in all her movies. Really weird. I hope they make a porn movie out of this one, because that version will automatically have more story-line than this 'work of art'.Instead of crying, I was laughing at the end of the movie. I was bored and was glad this movie was over. The book was better than the movie because it had a little more dept. The author however, in my opinion is a criminal that deserves none of all the attention he gets.

I went to see this movie because I heard a lot of news about it and knowing the book was quite successful. Knowing it was directed by Reinout Oerlemans I had some doubts but anyway I thought I should see it with an open mind. It totally disappointed me and did not reach a level above the average soap opera.First the character Stijn. He started out in the movie as a good looking guy working in an advertising company. The movie pretends he is a 'succesfull' guy but in reality he is an empty headed person not even past his puberty making dumb commercials and cheating on his wife without any remorse. It is not even clear why he loves her, the only thing mentioned she is good-looking and sexy and probably that is the only thing that matters in Stijn's mind. Stijn's cheating goes on through all the movie and only the in the end when is wife is dying he becomes loyal for a short period. Actually he is quite lucky she dies and does not have a chronic disease, shortly after her death he calls Roos to make up probably.Then Carmen, she seems to be a bit more smart and emotionally developed than her husband but still accepts his cheating. At one point she seems to get wise and wants a divorce. Unfortunately she is not that strong willed and it takes Stijn not more than a few days to talk her out of it. Yes he again gets away with his cheating as real womanizer should, is he supposed to be 'cool' for this or just a jerk who does not respect women !?!? I still can't understand what their happiness consists of besides a self-indulgent feeling of having an important or good career, yuppie friends and parties, and of course their daughter. To me they seem two under aged children not able commit to each other and to develop a relationship which goes deeper than sex and having a laugh together.Finally I also have some good points about the movie, there are some nice scenes especially by Carmen (Carice van Houten), the first is the car scene and the second of course the dying scene which are both well acted a filmed and actually give some worth to the movie. Another strong point is the speed of the story and the cool disco and sex scenes, they give some of the younger audience some entertainment although they distract from the main storyline. My conclusion is that it will be a nice flick for the 16 year old-s, but anyone over 25 with any intelligence should avoid this !