Grimm

** - I am nowhere near being an expert on fairy tales, but this 2003 Dutch film that is supposedly based on one or more of them has very little similarity to any fairy tales that I am familiar with, Brothers Grimm authored or otherwise. The beginning has a bit of a “Hansel and Gretel” feel to it, and I suppose someone with a very open mind could interpret other parts as being similarly parallel, but that is about as far as I could go with any sort of comparison. This is advertised (on the front of the NetFlix sleeve, anyway) as a “darkly comedic, absurdist take” on traditional fairy tales. I definitely see the absurdist aspect, but I found about as much dark comedy in this as I did in “Schindler’s List” (i.e. none). Perhaps it has something to with the Dutch-to-English translation, or the somewhat similar yet very clearly demarcated nuances between what Americans find funny and what Europeans do (eg. Jerry Lewis), but the long and the short of it is that I just didn’t laugh at all while watching this. I didn’t really enjoy it all that much either, although I must admit that I found the direction and cinematography to be pretty good, and I couldn’t really find any fault with the acting either. Still, I can’t really recommend watching this movie.