Director: Ineke Houtman
A boy who sees more than the adults around him admit turns his strict household into the subject of his own book in "The Book of Everything," a 2024 drama from director Ineke Houtman.
What is The Book of Everything about?
Nine-year-old Thomas grows up in 1960s Netherlands in a home ruled by scripture and by a father quick to enforce it with his hands. Thomas notices things other people miss — a hidden cruelty in the household routines, a longing for something gentler just outside the front door — and as that longing grows, he starts keeping a record he calls his Book on Everything. Inside it he writes down wishes for how things ought to change, including consequences for his father's temper, and he fills its pages with the strange company he keeps: a levitating neighbor with a piano-loving cat, tropical fish gliding through the city canals, a young witch with a peg leg living next door, and a figure who resembles Jesus Christ turning up in ordinary scenes. The film moves between the ordinariness of Thomas's daily life and the vivid imagination he builds to survive it, following how a child's private mythology can become a form of quiet resistance.
Cast & crew
Brandon River Coene plays Thomas, with Daan Schuurmans and Sallie Harmsen as his parents, and Aiko Beemsterboer, Margo Dames, Anita Franklin, Gonny Gaakeer, and Eva Damen filling out the neighborhood around him.
Context & significance
Director Ineke Houtman adapts the story as a Latvia-Netherlands co-production, keeping the film's runtime compact at 90 minutes despite the layered fantasy sequences woven through Thomas's world. The 1960s Dutch setting grounds the household's religious rigidity in a specific place and era, letting the more fantastical elements read as a child's coping mechanism rather than pure whimsy.
Where & how to watch
"The Book of Everything" streams on K-Time with a free account login, dubbed and subtitled in Persian so Farsi-speaking households can watch together. The platform's interface is built entirely in Farsi for the Iranian diaspora, making family-friendly international dramas like this one easy to find without wading through unrelated catalogs.