THE CHERRY PICK

Seldom has the subject of an adolescent's coming-of-age been handled with such delicacy, taste, poise, and bittersweet awareness. Young Jan goes to spend the customary summer at his grandfathers's small farm in rural Holland. Tinus, the laconic old man, is as always gentle but reserved, and perhaps a bit more distant than usual since his wife's death. In the grandmother's old cookbook, Jan finds a letter with a portentous handwriteen description of himself: “A nice child. Maybe too nice. I hope he deosn't grow up to be like his grandfather Tinus.” And there are unused plane tickets, travel brochures, clues to a long-ago trip never taken. Jan is forced to regard his grandfather in a new light and perhaps penetrate the man's calloused emotional shell while there's still time. The summer offers another distraction in Jan's teenaged cousin Maria, who also works the orchards picking cherries. She's attractive, friendly – and hiding a traumatic secret. The final shot of THE CHERRY PICK is cinema art at its most magical and suitably captures the “too-nice” boy's tender journey from innocence to sophistication. (In Dutch with English subtitles)