Straf

Merijn Scholte-Albers's 2025 Dutch film follows Edwin, a secondary school teacher in his forties. His wife has left him, his daughter does not want to be seen with him and at school neither colleagues nor students take him seriously. Something changes when his application for deputy head is refused. Edwin begins using the rules in his own favour; the narrative shows this not as revenge but as the overflow of something long accumulated. The tone is black comedy; the jokes are uncomfortable and the narrative does not defend Edwin. The school is shown in detail and its institutional workings satirised. Who it's for: those who like European black comedy. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a sympathetic protagonist; the film makes its character steadily harder to defend.