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Review | Netflix movie review: June & Kopi – the dogs are the stars in this awful Indonesian comedy
- Not even the diligent performances of its canine stars can save Noviandra Santosa’s Indonesian family drama from total condemnation
- The film – a series of doggy vignettes strung together by the antics of an affluent, if dull, family – is almost completely unwatchable
Reading Time:2 minutes
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1/5 stars
Crass, manipulative and clumsy, June & Kopi is almost completely unwatchable despite its occasionally noble intentions. Not even the diligent performances of its canine stars can save Noviandra Santosa’s Indonesian family drama from total condemnation.
Aya (Acha Septriasa) and Ale (Ryan Delon) are a wealthy young couple struggling to start a family. They reluctantly take in a stray dog, which they name June. She is scared of children, but comfortable around them and their pit bull, Kopi, even if Ale remains sceptical. Aya eventually becomes pregnant and the couple are concerned about June’s reaction to a baby in the house. Over the years, though, June proves an affectionate and attentive companion to young Karin (Makayla Rose Hilli).
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There isn’t much of a narrative to June & Kopi, nor a great deal of camaraderie between the dogs, despite what the title suggests. Instead, Santosa presents a series of vignettes: dog gets into the nursery, dog runs around a hospital, dog escapes from the yard – strung together by the daily antics of an affluent, if admittedly dull family. Five years of Karin’s infancy fly by in a single uneventful montage.
Aya is all heart, Ale is unnecessarily stern, while Karin’s single defining trait is having asthma. One suspects the film was constructed around whatever the filmmakers could get the dogs to do on camera – and in that regard, it succeeds.
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