A woman diagnosed with terminal lung cancer gathers her three dearest friends together to make the most of the time she has left.
Receptionist
A weekend in the life of a bizarre family in the sixties. Their lives will never be the same after it.
The parents of five sisters have been married for forty years; the daughters have gathered in the family beach house to make a video for them. The encounter is marked by many confrontations as well as cheerful moments. Reminiscent of the sweet children's poems that mother recited are countered by Elsschot's Marriage: 'He thought: I'll kill her and set light to the house...' It also turns out that father had once disappeared for eighteen months, a 'secret' that the daughters have different ideas about. Brittle, an intimate film version of a play written and performed by the same actresses, is about rivalry in a family, the right to silence, but also about the need for solidarity. At the Netherlands Film Festival in 1997 the Golden Calf for Best Actress was awarded to the five actresses together.
The three very different men in this film have become friends out of their common dissatisfaction with their lives. Beard is now more or less a street person since his wife left him. Before that, he was a social worker. "Foureyes" is a nebbish science teacher, who can't get anyone to take him seriously -- certainly not his students. He seeks solace in the quiet of the stars, which he views in his telescope at night. Finally, Gerdo is a fellow who is a master of many trades, successful at almost everything he does, except in his own eyes. Each new challenge proves unsatisfying when met. The only thing he wants is the one thing he can't bring about: the return of his old girlfriend, who left him for some boring civil servant. He sees her everywhere, and images of her haunt him constantly. (allmovie.com)
