"Die Wüstenärztin" is a television movie from three years ago starring Esther Schweins as the title character. It runs for slightly under 90 minutes and deals with a women's journey to the desert where she starts treating relatives of a colleague. The film's director actually has a respectable body of work and also works frequently as a writer. This is also why I was even more disappointed with the outcome here. But maybe most of his other projects suck too. Quantity does not necessarily mean quality.
Esther Schweins simply is not a great actress in my opinion. She started her career as a comedian for the German equivalent of Saturday Night Live roughly twenty years ago and later switched into the acting profession. She stayed somehow relevant until today. I guess, her looks did not hurt. Her husband here is also played by a famous face. Hannes Jaenicke has been among Germany's most established television actors for a long time. The story is mostly about the conflict of Bedouin life against life in the very modern world and the main character's struggle of where she belongs. The good thing about the film is that it was not too predictable which path she would choose in the end and many cringeworthy romantic movies may have chosen the other one, in fact. That's really the only positive thing I can think of now. Sadly, I never really cared for the character or about all the dramatic events that were constantly happening in here. Almost too much for one movie. And apart from that, it occasionally has some of the quotes and actions from these horrible romance movies I mentioned before. One quote that comes to mind is when Schweins' character talks to the Bedouin love interest guy and says something like "I need to talk to you. Only about medicine." which cheesily implies that she (they are not a couple at this point yet) could also talk to him about their future or their romantic relationship.
In the end, this film does not have a whole lot to do with medicine anymore, but is only about that love triangle, which hurts it quite a bit. Also everything about the ending is a mess. The audience gets trolled when we see her ride into the desert, but then find out it is only to say farewell to the Bedouin. The Bedouin's last words are a prime example of bad writing and made me think that there may be a sequel. So far nope and it's fine like this. In general, the dialogs were fairly underwhelming and Schweins simply does not have the talent to carry this, even with blonde hair in contrast to her trademark red hair. Jaenicke does a decent job with what he is given and he has much more screen time in the second half. If you want to see a really good film on a similar topic, i recommend "Der Medicus" ("The Physician").
Esther Schweins simply is not a great actress in my opinion. She started her career as a comedian for the German equivalent of Saturday Night Live roughly twenty years ago and later switched into the acting profession. She stayed somehow relevant until today. I guess, her looks did not hurt. Her husband here is also played by a famous face. Hannes Jaenicke has been among Germany's most established television actors for a long time. The story is mostly about the conflict of Bedouin life against life in the very modern world and the main character's struggle of where she belongs. The good thing about the film is that it was not too predictable which path she would choose in the end and many cringeworthy romantic movies may have chosen the other one, in fact. That's really the only positive thing I can think of now. Sadly, I never really cared for the character or about all the dramatic events that were constantly happening in here. Almost too much for one movie. And apart from that, it occasionally has some of the quotes and actions from these horrible romance movies I mentioned before. One quote that comes to mind is when Schweins' character talks to the Bedouin love interest guy and says something like "I need to talk to you. Only about medicine." which cheesily implies that she (they are not a couple at this point yet) could also talk to him about their future or their romantic relationship.
In the end, this film does not have a whole lot to do with medicine anymore, but is only about that love triangle, which hurts it quite a bit. Also everything about the ending is a mess. The audience gets trolled when we see her ride into the desert, but then find out it is only to say farewell to the Bedouin. The Bedouin's last words are a prime example of bad writing and made me think that there may be a sequel. So far nope and it's fine like this. In general, the dialogs were fairly underwhelming and Schweins simply does not have the talent to carry this, even with blonde hair in contrast to her trademark red hair. Jaenicke does a decent job with what he is given and he has much more screen time in the second half. If you want to see a really good film on a similar topic, i recommend "Der Medicus" ("The Physician").