The Egg is a short (58 minute) and sweet seriocomedy from Holland. Johan Leysen plays a shy, illiterate baker who desires an education. Marijke Veugelers portrays the equally shy schoolteacher who endeavors to teach Leysen how to read. Love blooms, and the results, while not always happy, are aesthetically more pleasing than in the similarly plotted Jane Fonda/Robert De Niro starrer Stanley and Iris. Most prints of The Egg are in Dutch with English subtitles, which is as it should be; any attempt to dub these characters with Americanized voices would dissipate the film's fragile charm.

After seven months of pregnancy a husband and wife learn that their unborn child won't survive for long.

A small boy and his retarded brother are completely dominated by their old, grumpy, angry mother. She swears, beats and doesn't seem to know how to prepare a proper meal anymore. Her embittered attitude is the result of the great emptiness she feels since her only successful son left to join the army. From that day on the two other sons have to cope with this enraged mother. Every evening dinner consist of the same boring, sticky spaghetti. Luckily the youngest son made up an ingenious plan to change all this for ever.