‘It Takes a Village’ (2026) Netflix Movie Review - A Yawn-Worthy Distraction

As far as movies that have no purpose other than simply existing go, Lukasz Kosmicki's It Takes a Village/Podlasie is a yawn-worthy distraction. I won't even bother going into its plot. Instead, I will reproduce the official Netflix synopsis to save myself the trouble: When a bad investment puts Halina's (Anna Seniuk) home at risk, Jan (Artur Barcis) and the village scheme to make Bodzki a tourist hot spot to save her from financial ruin. This is more than enough information. Does it matter if I mention that the bad investment has something to do with Bitcoin? No. Does it matter if I mention that the scheme Jan and the villagers cook up involves selling Bodzki as a site visited by aliens? No. One can, for a second, wear their "intellectual cap" and say that writers Katarzyna Frankowska and Katarzyna Golenia miss an opportunity to expose how fickle-minded and superstitious some people are that they buy all sorts of supernatural nonsense, but the filmmakers never display even a hint that they wanted to make something clever. To dig for "meaning" in this unremarkable fluff would be like wearing clown makeup. Oh, does it matter if I mention that It Takes a Village is a sequel to Bartosz Prokopowicz's Nic Na Sile/No Pressure? Of course not.

I have, by the way, not watched No Pressure. In fact, I came to know that It Takes a Village is a sequel only when I returned to the Netflix page after watching the film and found it under a "No Pressure Collection." But based on a brief IMDb description and a trailer, I think I have figured out what happened in No Pressure and how the story continues in this film. In that 2024 rom-com, Oliwia (Anna Szymanczyk) drops everything and comes to Bodzki to save Halina's farm. Halina, by playing dead, tricks Oliwia into coming to the village, but hey, all the manipulative games are fine as long as the woman gets to meet her lover. That would be Kuba (Mateusz Janicki), and after saving the farm (her skills as a chef would have contributed to the solution) and meeting this boyfriend, it would make sense that the sequel would open with their marriage. I think this is what It Takes a Village wants you to believe with all those lines at the beginning about a young couple's wedding celebration.

Turns out, Halina is not the only one who likes to deceive people. The movie plays a similar trick by revealing that it's not Kuba and Oliwia but Jan and Halina who are about to get married. The characters refer to them as a "young couple" mainly for this twist to land, although when you think about it, Jan and Halina are indeed as immature as young people. She is impatient and short-tempered; he says he trusts Halina but quickly accuses her of being unfaithful on the basis of some photographs without waiting to listen to her explanation. Then again, it's not as if Halina promptly attempts to resolve this problem. She is cranky, proud, and rigid. There is some fun to be had in seeing a character like Halina receiving the rom-com treatment usually reserved for younger faces. However, both she and Jan commit the sin of going through all the same old motions. She doesn't fully eavesdrop on a phone conversation; he makes wild deductions through his own imagination. Like other couples who belong to this genre of romance, all Halina and Jan needed to do was sit down and have a nice, complete face-to-face chat. It would have saved a lot of time for both the couple and the audience.

It's also not much good news that the old lovers are surrounded by bland extras. The side characters do nothing more than add "color." The village looks beautiful, but the beautiful scenery amounts to little when the whole thing seems to be on autopilot. Things just keep on happening to create an illusion of a bustling atmosphere. The tourists come in groups to see the circular mark made by the "aliens," but such a sudden disruption in quiet village life doesn't significantly alter the routine of the residents. There is never a sense of two different types of crowds combining and interacting with one another. Apart from basic interactions like asking for directions, the village and the city people don't mix together. There is no exchange of ideas, thoughts, or even discussion around the supposed extraterrestrial invasion. The two groups remain separated. The city people just add to the crowd—and I think this reflects some sort of belief the writers have about urban dwellers: that they are dumb compared to village people. The city folks, after all, never raise doubts about the rumor related to the aliens, and one of them—a woman—reproaches Jan for making her kid cry by speaking the truth about what actually happened.

It's no wonder, then, that both No Pressure and It Takes a Village deal with stories about characters who essentially trade the city lifestyle for the peace offered by rural environments. If Oliwia decides to live in Bodzki in No Pressure, Ewa (Joanna Trzepiecinska), Oliwia's mother, takes the same step here. There is a whiff of a condescending attitude emanating from the filmmakers about townspeople, and it's the same cliché that some people deliver when they talk about the greenery, the silence, the innocence of the village and villagers as if rural residents have no lustful, evil, or corrupt desires. Beliefs like these are hokum cooked up by people living in cities who wear rose-tinted glasses. It's a stale, superficial opinion, but then, It Takes a Village isn't "fresh" either. It's as smart as a marble.

Final Score- [1.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times