Still: Jippie No More - Margien Rogaar

As a premise, the story is pretty unique. On the eve of a winter wedding in an enormous and gloriously shabby country house, Jippie, a sixteen-year-old rapper with Down’s Syndrome, falls in love with local girl Lily. The problem is, so does Jippie’s sister Joe. And what’s more, the feeling between the two girls is mutual.

Meanwhile Jippie’s dad Jacob is stressing out about everything, not least his own father’s inability to acknowledge the recent passing of his wife, and Jacob’s mother. Punky middle child Jane couldn't give a toss about anyone (or anything) until she meets the cute Ishaan in a hardware store. And all the while, the pregnant Gail is wondering whether her impending marriage to the perennially distracted Bart is a good idea. Mum Saar, meanwhile, is trying to hold them all together…

Director Margien Rogaar explains how the whole thing came into being. “Screenwriter Fiona [van Heemstra] and I were speaking about the next film we could make together, and about the kind of kid we wanted to have as the main character. And then she told me about this boy in the class of her daughter, who has Down’s Syndrome, and she told me how liberating it was for her daughter and her friends that he was in their class because he opened their hearts.”

The film may revolve around a family whose kids are on the cusp of adulthood, but the ebullient Jippie [played by Wesley van Klink] is core to proceedings. “How can I make a story about a boy who's not the average kid?” Rogaar remembers how she approached her subject. “And how can I make a connection between the viewer, the audience, the kids and this person who doesn’t look like them at first sight, but in the end makes them feel ‘he’s just like me, I am Jippie.’” Her pitch for the project therefore went along the lines of, “what happens if you really want something and everyone says you cannot do it, and in the end you can do it?”  And so she sought to resolve matters within a Four Weddings vibe, whereby resolution eventually is arrived at, but only after much worry, tension and heartache. 

“At the same time, the other kids also have their teenage stuff,”explains Rogaar. “I always love the point in a story when you have grown up as a family but then everyone is not small anymore. Everyone starts to become a new real person.”

The casting of the film is nigh on perfect with each character delivering authentic, charming and heart-warming performances with both skill and dexterity. “I told the producer [Iris Otten of Juliet at Pupkin] that I wanted to do a lot of rehearsing because everyone needs to know how to feel both free and prepared at the same time,” says Rogaar of how she prepared to direct her cast. “Wesley, sometimes he does what we say, and sometimes he does something different, which is really cool, but you have to be prepared and open to that when the camera rolls. And also with the girls, it was not easy because it was the first time they played two girls falling in love, so we had to also explore how does it feel, and how do you do that? Also how can they [the actors] perform as, and become, a family? So a lot of scenes were based on the script, but then changed a little into new scenes that came from improvisations.” Rogaar highlights the moment when sister Jane goes under the table with Jippie at the winter wedding, and both pretend it is their very own private igloo.

The film concludes with a cool rap, not written by a Dutch pop star or aspiring X-Factor contender, rather by the director’s own daughter Lena, who was then a mere eight years old. “She was always inventing all kinds of funny songs, and this was one.” Not that the young songstress was immediately willing to hand over her masterwork. “At first she said ‘no’, but then in the end she was ok with it,” Rogaar signs off with parental pride (and relief).