Casa Coco is a new comedy directed by Bob Wilbers, director of Boeien! And Heart in the Right Place.
In the film, Paula (Loes Luca) and Johan (Gijs de Lange) decide to go to Bonaire to the Pension Casa Coco run by their old friend Pleun (Joke Bruijs). This time they decided to take their other friend Toon (Gerard Cox) with them after his divorce as well. The problem is that Pleun and Toon are ex-lover of each other and they haven't seen each other for years. This coming together can only add to the awkwardness between the two.
This film is the third film that Bob Wilbers has directed in the same year. This crowds are still due to the corona pandemic of recent years. Casa Coco would otherwise have been released in cinemas earlier. Despite this delay, this film unfortunately brings little new compared to other Dutch romantic comedies. The film could actually have been put on a streaming service such as Videoland before, because to actually see this film in the cinema now, it is actually not really worth the film. The three writers of the film are also more known for writing standard Dutch romantic comedies and unfortunately have not really created anything special with this new film.
The story is a bit messy and contains too many different characters. There is almost no real clear story in the film. The film also becomes more filled with the different stories of all the different characters, who are more mindful of their own business. There is talk about a history between some characters, but this is not really clearly portrayed, so this doesn't really interest you as a viewer. If the film itself had had fewer characters and the remaining characters had been given a clearer background, the film would have come across more clearly with characters that the viewer cares about a bit more. Aside from the messy story, this remains on the predictable side. As a viewer you can roughly expect where the story is going and what is going to happen. This way you can keep ahead of the story, which only makes for a long-winded feeling.
Thanks to the standard story and the amount of characters, most of the film cast also have few opportunities to do anything special with their roles. The various characters remain each other, but overshadow with their own storylines. The chemistry between the many couples does not come across as really romantic and sometimes even feels a bit more forced. It would also have helped here if the film cast had consisted of fewer people, because then actors such as Gerard Cox or Joke Bruijs might have had some opportunities to make something special out of their roles.
