2006 Dutch comedy
Rating: 14/20
Plot: A waiter endures work stress and tries to manage a complicated love life in a story being written by a scriptwriter and his partner.
Even though this won two Gouden Kalverens (according to the poster), this wasn't my favorite von Warmerdam movie I've seen in my little Alex van Warmerdam fest. It did have a pair of laugh-out-loud moments, however. One shows the results of a screenwriter falling asleep at the keyboard. The other involves a purchase the titular waiter makes at a shop, a dialogue-free scene that tests the viewer's patience and cracks him up at the same time. I believe the shopkeeper was an old lady, but she looked a little like Marty Feldman or maybe a Monty Python character. The character is "Oud Winkel Vrouwtje" and she's played by Rene van 't Hof.
The meta aspect is a little cheesy, and the reveal that this poor guy's life is being mercilessly scripted might be revealed a little early. As with all van Warmerdam comedies, this is filled with dark slapstick and quirky characters. It's probably a little too easy to consider the screenwriter as a metaphor for God or the screenplay as an existential crisis, so I won't do it.
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