Egg (Ei) 36 years old

The Egg is a short (58 minute) and sweet seriocomedy from Holland. Johan Leysen plays a shy, illiterate baker who desires an education. Marijke Veugelers portrays the equally shy schoolteacher who endeavors to teach Leysen how to read. Love blooms, and the results, while not always happy, are aesthetically more pleasing than in the similarly plotted Jane Fonda/Robert De Niro starrer Stanley and Iris. Most prints of The Egg are in Dutch with English subtitles, which is as it should be; any attempt to dub these characters with Americanized voices would dissipate the film's fragile charm.