Well-known novelist and literary monument, 55-year-old Jan Meerman's successful life is thrown upside down when his 85-year-old mother, Josée Verbeke, unexpectedly has a severe stroke. Jan no longer recognizes his once lively mother as her verbal witticisms have been replaced by pitiful cries and gibberish. In these difficult times Jan faces the upcoming deadline of his new novel. The confrontation he has to engage with the decline of his mother makes him question his priorities.
Acting
Viviane de Muynck's wordless devastation — acting without language.
Direction
Van Mieghem traps you in Jan's suffocating guilt.
Director
Hilde Van Mieghem
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Belgian cinema's obsession with family dysfunction finds peak form here — think the Dardenne brothers' emotional cruelty without their hope.
The title's bitter irony: Jan 'speechless' before his mother's actual speechlessness, his eloquence useless against her silence.
NL
