20s Movie Review - Faithfully Yours

Director: André van Duren
Genre: Thriller/ Mystery
Runtime: 95 minutes
Year: 2022
Starring: Bracha van Doesburg, Elise Schaap, Nasrdin Dchar, Gijs Naber, Matteo Simoni, Hannah Hoekstra

Description: Best friends Bodil (Bracha van Doesburg) and Isabel (Elise SChapp), apparently happily married, sneak off for secret affairs using each other as an alibi. But when Isabel us killed when they were supposed to have been together, Bodil gets caught up in her own web of lies.

Review: “Faithfully Yours” opens with a statement about lying. In the opening image, we see a dog with bloodied paws walk away from a house. We already know something back has happened. It seems “Faithfully Yours” wants to combine suspense with an intelligent script. They didn’t succeed.

Bodil and Isabel are best friends and they both live a double live. And they have been for quite some time. Every once in a while the two take a cultural trip, where they stay in Belgium where Bodil has inherited a country house. Both women indulge ins spicy affairs and they are each other’s alibi. On this trip, something goes horribly wrong when Isabel disappears. The only trace is a substantial bloodbath, but Isabel is nowhere to be found.

When Isabel’s disappearance turns into a lurid murder case, including a shady plot, Bodil faces a dilemma. By telling the truth, Bodil and Isabel’s carefully constructed lies will collapse. Their real lives will thus be destroyed. Surely Bodil cannot risk that, so she becomes entangled in her own web of lies.
While one far-fetched plot twist after another presents itself, the characters themselves remain totally underexposed. Everyone is distant, cold, interested in only themselves, unlikeable. The film has an unsympathetic tone and remains flat. “Faithfully Yours” is never really exciting, rather boring. And not credible at all.

On top of that, the sketchy murder plot is very vague and has underdeveloped ideas, with a revelation that really makes no sense at all. It feels like a last-minute solution.

It’s a dumb story with stupid characters that nobody cares about. And you have to sit through all that only to finish with a lame finale. “Faithfully Yours” is a shameful waste fo talent, time and money.

Rating: 1,5/ 5