‘Three Days of Fish’ Review: A Warm Breeze of Melancholy Runs Through This Dutch Father-Son Portrait
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic If Alexander Payne’s home discomforts weren’t Nebraskan but instead the soft climate and flat sidewalks of Rotterdam — if his name were Alexander Peijn, perhaps — his films might turn out a little like Peter Hoogendoorn‘s hangdog charmer “Three Days of Fish.” At once universally familiar and so quintessentially Dutch in flavor that it should come with a side of fritessaus, this story of a brief, fraught reunion between a distant father and his unmoored son is an intimate, closely examined character piece rooted in the director’s own family history — much like his debut “Between 10 and 12,” which premiered at Venice in 2014 but never found the international distribution it deserved.
Bowing in competition at Karlovy Vary, this decade-later sophomore feature may be modestly built, but has enough emotional heft and wry humor to raise Hoogendoorn’s profile on the arthouse circuit.
It takes a little time to work out exactly what family politics connect (or separate) taciturn retired mechanic Gerrie (Ton Kas), his shambling middle-aged son Dick (Guido Pollemans), and a second child, Nadia (Neidi Dos Santos Livramento), who doesn’t seem to have much to do with the first.
Hoogendoorn’s spare but perceptive script counts on its own tense character dynamics to fill in the blanks over time. That approach serves it well, as do a set of fine, precise performances.
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