Treat Her Like a Lady

During an Amsterdam heatwave, Sandra discovers her partner’s cheating and is dealt one financial blow after another. Spirited and hopeful, humorous and heart-wrenching, this insightful feature boasts a radiant performance from Nienke Plas as a mother refusing to be cowed by an apathetic social system.

Sandra is just about keeping it together. Living with her two daughters and partner in a modest but colourful Amsterdam apartment, she makes ends (mostly) meet through cleaning jobs, bartering with neighbours and welfare payments. But when she’s faced with a rapidly mounting series of hurdles – unpaid bills, an accusation of fraud, the revelation that her partner has been cheating – Sandra must draw upon all her determination and creativity to keep her daughters out of social care.

An effervescent second feature from Dutch filmmaker and writer Paloma Aguilera Valdebenito (Out of Love, IFFR 2016), this jewel of a film offers poignant criticism of a broken social system with all the vibrancy and optimism of a musical. Nienke Plas is masterful in her central performance as the matriarch, whose fortitude, boldness and charisma bring to mind the best of Almodóvar’s heroines.

Featuring a gorgeously saturated colour palette and a fabulous needle-drop soundtrack, Treat Her Like a Lady demonstrates how warmth and resilience can transform the most desperate situations into fresh opportunities for laughter and light.

– Sophie Tupholme