EUFF 2022: Love in a Bottle

Netherlands | Paula van der Oest | 2021 | 80 min

In the chaos of a pandemic-disrupted Milan airport, strangers Lucky (Hannah Hoekstra) and Miles (James Krishna Floyd) almost miss each other. But the romantic impulse wins out: Lucky swipes Miles’s luggage tag, and this becomes a lifeline for the both of them during the dark, isolating early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Directed by the prolific Paula van der Oest (Tonio, EUFF 2018), this long-distance relationship unfolds completely within the oasis (or purgatory) of the computer screen. Consider it a You’ve Got Mail for the always-online era. “[Lucky and Miles] are opposite personalities: she is a playful perfume maker and trampoline jumper, he is a somewhat inhibited ICT professional and nature photographer … Love in a Bottle is remarkably intimate; a privilege of the (emergency) chosen form … [It] captures something essential about digital contact, which sometimes makes conversations less veiled and more honest” (Bor Beekman, De Volkskrant). In English.

“Floating on the chemistry between Hoekstra and Floyd, both charismatic enough to hold the attention even in split-screen, Love in a Bottle lightly and recognizably shows the early stages of a relationship, but one that arises entirely via screens.” Joost Broeren-Huitenga, De Filmkrant