Semi-Soeter is the sequel (or should I call it a legacy sequel?) to the 2012 film Semi-Soet. Back then, "pretend couple to real couple" plots were all the rage, and Joshua Rous and his co-writers, Anel Alexander, James Gracie, and Sandra Vaughn, decided to capitalize on that trend.
The narrative centered around an advertising agency employee who faked her relationship with the same businessman who was about to acquire the company she worked for in order to close a deal with a wine company. Why? Because the winemaker explicitly stated that he wanted someone in a "steady romantic relationship" to market his product. It didn't make any sense, but since premises like these were accepted by everyone back then, it was given free rein. In retrospect, one can sense the underlying intention of championing heterosexual relationships because it was the "smart" thing to do, especially when it came to being accepted as a professional. After a decade, one would expect the writers to have become more sensitive, right? They're wrong. They've gotten worse.
Director: Joshua Rous
Writers: Sandra Vaughn, Anel Alexander, Zandré Coetzer
Stars: Anel Alexander, Nico Panagio, Louw Venter
Semi-Soeter, by Joshua Rous, co-written by Rous with Sandra Vaughn, Anel Alexander, Zandre Coetzer, James Gracie, Corine du Toit, and Helene Truter, takes us into the lives of Jaci, JP, Hertjie, and Karla. Hertjie and Karla are "happily married" with five children; meanwhile, Jaci and JP are also "happily married" and are glad they can't have children, as it allows them to focus on their respective jobs at Mojo and Amalgamated Media. The downside to Jaci and JP's workaholism is that they are constantly forced to deal with neurotic clients and travel internationally, which has been putting a strain on their seemingly smooth relationship.
JP has been selected to go to Dubai and stay there for a while, as this will not only improve the company's future prospects but also make his family's lavish lifestyle a little more sustainable. Of course, JP doesn't want to leave Jaci or his home country behind. That's why he encourages Jaci to close the marketing deal with YBAB, a baby products company.
However, upon arriving, they learn that YBAB's CEO, Marietjie, favors marketing companies whose representatives are parents, which puts Chadrie and Joubert (Jaci and JP's competitors) at the top of her list. Karla and Hertjie make a spur-of-the-moment decision and hand over their newborn, Henry, to Jaci and JP. Now, to please Marietjie, the couple has to pretend to be Henry's parents or split up at the end of the shoot. Jaci has an additional task: hide the fact that she's pregnant.
I don't know what to mention first when talking about my issues with Semi-Soeter. Well, the film opens with this statement: even though raising children is hard, people should try because... it's fun? According to the writers, you shouldn't settle for one; you should have at least three. After that, there are no limits. They conveniently omit the financial support necessary in today's economy to have 3 to 5 children, because that would overshadow the "fun" part of parenting. I have a vague idea of the lifestyles of people in the marketing world, and I can assure you that, even in the most prosperous countries, 40-year-old professionals don't live life to the fullest like Hertjie and Karla.
Maybe CEOs do, but the rest certainly don't. Then there's the moral dilemma of having children. Whenever we meet a couple who have decided not to have children, it's always the "innocent and sweet" guy who backs out, making the woman look bad for having kept the promise they made to each other. And, by the way, there's no compelling reason for the guy to change his mind. It's always something vague like "your biological clock is giving you signals." What does that even mean? But it's not even the worst of it; it's the miracle pregnancy that comes out of nowhere and alters everyone's brain chemistry, especially the screenwriters'.
Like the opaque reasoning behind JP's sudden need to be a father, Jaci's fear that JP will abandon her if he finds out about her pregnancy is completely irrational. And the fact that it's being chalked up to "hormonal panic" drives me crazy. Also, why does pregnancy change Jaci's mind completely? Why does she go from being against children to being totally in favor of having a baby? Why does she never have a calm, collected discussion with anyone, as most adults do or should, about whether she should keep the baby or abort it? Oh yes, because they're too busy cheating on Chadrie, Joubert, and Marietjie, and engaging in other crazy shenanigans.
Throughout Semi-Soeter, reams of evidence are compiled that point to Jaci and JP being unfit to be parents. But as soon as Jaci sees that if she chooses professional success over being a full-time mother, she'll end up as alone and sad as Marietjie, she realizes she urgently needs to give birth to the children she's carrying. It's nonsense. And yes, this movie is a comedy, and I would have treated all of this as a bunch of hilarious plot points if the underlying pro-life commentary hadn't been so dangerous, outdated, and retrograde. Our world can't support more people. So any movie that says, "Hey, have more kids," I immediately throw in the trash.
To be honest, Semi-Soeter would have been entertaining, realistic, and timely if it had used its main gimmick—being fake parents—to woo the CEO of a company that makes baby products, thus further cementing Jaci and JP's decision not to become parents. After guiding the audience on this tour of the YBAB convention, which highlights the advocacy of creating children to be used as cogs in the capitalist money-making machine, what's the point if there's no criticism? And yes, criticism can come from a comedic perspective; it's called satire. But I guess Joshua Rous and his team aren't out to educate anyone.
They want people to continue making the same mistakes society has made for generations, which have brought humanity to the brink of extinction, while this work benefits immensely wealthy CEOs who don't even know where they're going with all that money. However, I have no hard feelings toward the cast. I think Anel Alexander, Nico Panagio, Louw Venter, Diaan Lawrenson, Neels van Jaarsveld, and all the children who played Henry gave passionate performances. If you want to see this highly anticipated sequel, go ahead. If not, educate yourselves about the world we live in and how immoral it is to bring innocent souls to this hell, and then decide whether to have children.
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