Joram Lürsen, the director of this Dutch family film, has wryly complained that funding such a mainstream film was difficult. In the Netherlands, if you make a children’s film it needs to also be about an “issue”. Not a feel-good comedy with a heart-warming father-son relationship at its centre, as this the case here.
Ten-year-old Ben (Thor Braun) is obsessed by magic. His dad, Koos (Theo Maassen), is a klutzy forest ranger down on his luck. Spotting an opportunity, Koos begins magic lessons with Ben and forms an amateur duo, along with young assistant Sylvie (Java Siegertsz). But when Sylvie mysteriously disappears during the climax of an act, the family is catapulted into the limelight, and Koos’s relationship with wife Laura (Chantal Janzen) is on the brink of collapse. Can Ben save the day with one last extra special trick?
