A Dutch coming of age film with a twist of crime.
As Prince opens, we are introduced to Ayoub, a teenage boy of Dutch and Moroccan descent. Like most teenage boys in coming of age films, Ayoub likes to cause a bit of trouble with his friends, falls for the girl next door who is out of his league, and longs for a way to crush the playground bully. However, what gives you hope that this isn’t a complete cliché is that he is growing up on the cusp of the criminal underworld and his father is a junkie. Without any real role model, except local kingpin Kalpa, he struggles to find direction. While it may not be a completely clichéd concept, it isn’t exactly new.
Among the things this film has done right is the cinematography and the directing. The way Sam de Jong uses lighting effects in his debut feature is smart and captivating. During the more surreal and drug induced scenes, he takes the audience on a ride right alongside the lost Ayoub. However, transitions, or the lack thereof, make the beginning of scenes seem clunky, sudden, and a bit confusing. You might find yourself thinking someone cut the scene short or may wonder “Wait, how did we get here again?”.
The original score in the film plays wonderfully to its advantage, giving it a very surreal feel with it’s 80s synth sound. The acting is surprisingly good given a relatively young and inexperienced cast. At times, the bully Ronnie and his gang feel more like caricatures than real people, but they never go too overboard with it. The foreshadowing of Ayoub’s change is wonderfully coupled with an impending and symbolized thunderstorm you can hear off in the distance.
The fault in this film lies in the strong ambiguity surrounding several plot points. In the first half of the film, de Jong used the impending thunderstorm not just to foreshadow coming events, but as a symbol of Ayoub’s sudden and momentous change deeper into adulthood. The sudden introduction of the crown, making Ayoub a prince in a way, is rather unexplained and feels like a missed opportunity. Rather than taking the chance to build up a strong meaning for what this crown could symbolize, it just becomes a sort of important prop on Ayoub’s journey.
As the film rapidly spirals to an end, you begin to wonder how some issues got resolved. We are left to assume that everything just magically fixed itself, without a scene or a few words that would signal the outcome. You could kind of see this ending playing out, but it takes a good deal of supposition. By the end of the film, it ends just as you thought any coming of age movie from the 80’s would. What started off as a sort of interesting film wound down into everything you’d thought it’d be.
Prince arrives in theaters August 14.
