Stream It Or Skip It?

In 2012, Semi-Soet (translation from Afrikaans: Semi-Sweet) was a hit South African rom-com that aped the traditional Hollywood formula – silly misunderstandings, broad characters, break-up-and-make-up plots, etc. – to significant box office success in its native country. And the American-style tradition continues with Netflix resuscitating old properties for sequels: Semi-Soeter (Semi-Sweeter) reunites most of the cast and creative team for another round of silly misunderstandings, broad characters, break-up-and-make-up plots, etc. So Joshua Rous returns to direct stars Anel Alexander and Nico Panagio, reprising their roles as high-powered ad execs who loathed each other until they loved each other. What could they be up to now, though? For better or worse, we’re about to find out.

SEMI-SOETER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: RECAP: In the first movie, Jaci (Alexander) tried really hard to not let her ad company, Mojo, get amalgamated by JP’s (Panagio) Amalgamated Media corp. Well, the amalgamation happened, and they soon amalgamated themselves into each other’s… lives. (You thought I was going to say something else there, didn’t you? Naughty naughty.) Now, they’re a high-powered couple who say stupid shit like “Mojo and Amalgamated Media are our family!” and you know it’s all denial, stuff they say to justify their workaholism. But. What the hell is going on in this opening scene where they struggle to manage the 897 children running and screaming chaotically through this massive open-space-concept house? 

Don’t be silly. Of course, those aren’t their children – golly the movie sure pulled a rug out from under us, eh? – they’re just godparents to their friends Hertjie (Louw Venter) and Karla’s (Sandra Vaughn) sprawling brood. JP and Jaci were just babysitting before they hop in their McLaren and Range Rover, respectively, to go to the office and be spiritually empty money earners. But first, Jaci has a doctor appointment where she learns – well, got any guesses? In movies like this it can be only two things, terminal cancer or pregnancy. It’s never a bone spur or a planters wart, is it? So yeah, she’s knocked up, and in movies like this, the character will inevitably keep it a secret so there’s some manufactured nonsensical suspense to keep us interested. Theoretically, at least.

Jaci and JP had a conversation about how they might want to start a family but might not want to start a family and it was confusing and a bit tense so you might as well add to the confusion and tension by not sharing this important information, right? Sure. Meanwhile, utterly coincidentally, they’re working together so Mojo can land a big fat ad campaign for a baby-products company owned by Marietjie (Helene Truter). This involves (please get out your rom-com cliches checklist) going to a resort (check), participating in wacky activities (check) and being shamelessly fraudulent (check) while they compete against rival jerks for the gig (check). 

And so, they fend off JP’s old nemesis Joubert (Neels van Jaarsveld) and his wife Chadrie (Diaan Lawrenson) and masquerade as parents to meet Marietjie’s criteria that the campaign will be best run by people who know all the ins and outs about babies. A series of wacky circumstances find them pretending Hertjie and Karla’s baby is their own and hopefully not losing the baby or participating in a super-gross diaper incident. I dunno, this all seems dicey. I mean, JP and Jaci masqueraded as a couple in the first movie and that turned out OK, but this – this is beyond the pale. They’re NEVER gonna survive this plot with their relationship intact! Might as well stop watching the movie now.  

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: That one rom-com. You know. The one with Heigl and Dempsey. Or was it Duhamel? Josh Lucas? Who can tell these guys apart? Right: It was Duhamel. Life As We Know It, it was called. It did not resemble any life we’ve ever known, trust me. 

Performance Worth Watching: The wacky scene-stealer role is spread among a few castmembers, enough so none of them qualify. So we’re left with Alexander, who is a warm and likable-enough presence despite the near-nothing that is her character, notably from a screenplay she co-wrote. 

Memorable Dialogue: Jaci helps us recall the first movie: “We’ve tried this little white lie thing before, and it blew up in our faces!”

Sex and Skin: None. All this baby-centric action but nothing to do with making ’em.

Our Take: Let’s see – should I take the We’re Weary Of Movies That Insist People Who Choose Not To Have Children Are Soulless Husks critical angle, or the What Hath Hollywood Wrought? route? The former is a lot less fun, so let’s go with the latter: Semi-Soet proved that rom-com tropes aren’t solely the domain of American studios or audiences. Its 1997-via-2012 success paved the way for a 2025 sequel that still feels like 1997. Is aping a creatively bankrupt Hollywood formula for financial success a point of pride for the South African film industry? At the risk of sounding condescending, I must say: I hope not.

Semi-Soeter shows little interest in deviating from the same, tired old recipe: Wacky sitcom musical score, crass product placement, bright ‘n’ cheery lighting, locations that are essentially vacation spots, stock characters, lowbrow poop jokes, and all that. (Side note: Deploying crass product placement in a movie about ad execs made me unreasonably upset.) Granted, some recent movies adhere to this formula, but are still worth watching – Anyone But You comes to mind – thanks to inspired performances, dialogue and characters. They transcend the tropes and make us laugh in spite of ourselves. 

But this movie? It’s content to conform, and tries too damn hard to be funny instead of simply, you know, being funny. (Yeah, I guess cliched movies inspire cliched criticism.) Semi-Soeter is blandly competent at best, and at worst, its bevy of dirty-diaper gags become an unfortunate metaphor for watching the movie. Oh, and by the way, it’s obvious that raising a family is the only way to live a life of happiness and fulfillment, and those who believe otherwise are selfish cretins with giant piles of money and spotless countertops and empty insides. Never forget!

Our Call: Semi-Soeter is some thin gruel for your comedy breakfast. SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.