Maarten is an ordinary 16-year-old. He likes to hang around in the park, listen to music, play videogames and dance as much as possible. Preferably with his dance partner Roxanne. But almost nobody, especially not Roxanne, knows he has a metabolic disease that could end his life. Despite the concerns of his parent, Maarten wants to live life to the fullest. But with his body failing him more and more, maybe the time has come to accept he is not ordinary.

20 LIES, 4 PARENTS AND A LITTLE EGG tells the story of Sjors and Bert, a gay male couple who are unexpectedly introduced to the 15 year-old adolescent Dylan. Dylan was the product of a sperm donation that Sjors had forgotten he had ever made. But after his eviction by his mother and girlfriend, the boy has turned up on Sjors and Bert's doorstep, and the lives of everybody will be changed forever.

The unrelenting words ‘with a knife’ change everything. A TV personality is briefly distracted whilst filming her pet project – ‘a warm, endearing portrait of society’ – only to discover her camera is gone. The police, however, hardly take her report seriously and the insurance company doesn’t want to pay out – until she lies, saying it was a robbery involving ‘a knife’. Which immediately has huge consequences for Yousef, the young suspect.
Director Sam de Jong makes visually effervescent films, as was shown by his debut, PRINS (2015), and GOLDIE (2019), filmed in America. In Met mes, everything is in overdrive: from the musical score to the striking camera angles and movements, from the synthetic shell suits and green eyeliner, to the game show sound effects intended to emphasise emotions. The colour filter creates a world of candy cane tones, a neon 1980s video fantasy in which Hadewych Minis wears dental braces and Gijs Naber has a rat tail haircut.
In this artificial environment, actor Shahine El-Hamus's portrayal of teenager Yousef has something vulnerable about it, under his ever-changing hair colour. He is surrounded by all manner of respectable adults, who don’t want to hear his side of the story or just act in their own self-interest. Using subdued humour, De Jong tells a story of hypocrisy and stigmatisation. One that is painfully common, but, if you think about it, at least as surreal as the absurdist visuals.