"The Shell Seekers" or "Die Muschelsucher" is a co-production between Germany and the UK from 2006, so this one is already over a decade old. IMDb says it's a German language project, but looking at the title and cast, I have doubts about that. Anway, it runs for slightly under 3 hours in total, but it may very well be possible that there are shorter versions out there and that they cut some stuff from the original to fit this project into a 20:15 television movie. The two big names here are of course Oscar winners Redgrave and Schell and I genuinely wonder how they got actors of that category to appear in a film based on cheesy schmaltz romance writer Rosamunde Pilcher's work. Oh well, maybe it has to do with the fact that this work was previously adapted into a well-received film in the past, one that starred Angela Lansbury in Redgrave's role. Oh yeah Sebastian Koch is in here too, but his screen time is so tiny that I certainly would not recommend his fans to sit through almost 180 minutes for that. Maybe check out video platforms for his scene. Schell is in it longer, but also not that much really that his fans need to see it. Those who maybe want to are the fans of the talented Vanessa Redgrave. She has decent screen time and material and is basically the only aspect that keeps this from becoming a garbage movie. But only she can do so much to slightly elevate the really weak script and make up for all the extremely forgettable British cast members in here. As always with Pilcher, there are such important subjects in here like money, greed, death, marriage and most of all love and also as always with Pilcher films these subjects are handled in ways that are horrifyingly bad. I cannot say if the writer is to blame or if the filmmakers are at fault, but I can say that this film here cannot even be saved by the stars that show up on the cast list. What were you thinking Nessa? It's a thumbs-down, don't watch. Way too long too, so if you find a shorter version, go for that one, but make sure it's not just the first half or so. Or skip it altogether, may be the wisest choice actually.
Review of The Shell Seekers
