"Simpel" is a German fill feature film from 2017 and the most recent work by award-winning filmmaker Markus Goller, who is also part of the writing team here. But he is clearly not the star here. That would be Frederick lau without a doubt. The film starts with him and ends with him and I think he is the best thing about this movie too. Lets not forget his co-lead David Kross that many know from The Reader of course, but atg no point itg is anybody's movie but Lau's, which fits in very well with him being among the biggest German film stars now and Kross' star really going down quickly. I almost felt a bit bad for the latter honestly because his entire character felt written to make Lau as good as possible and even if lau manages to pull it off and elevate the material at times, I still would have hoped to see more quality involving Kross, which is rather the screenplay's fault than really his. But lets take a look at the other known cast members too. German film buffs will, find several others in here too like Frier, Sarnau, Pistor, Stein, Striesow and Schüle who plays the biggest part next to the two boys. And she is as stunning as always. One thing I liked about her character is that while they implied romantic interest, there is not a love story between her and Lau's character before the film ends because he always has his hands full with his brother. But there are also letdowns and not just a few. For example about Schüle, I did not like how early on she seemed to struggle in finding the right way to deal with Simpel and then all of a sudden she effortlessly plays with him. (Same for Frier's character by the way.) Or her criticisms towards Lau's character Ben feel ridiculously fake when she is about to call the police on him. In general you could say this film was struggling a whole lot in his dramatic moments. Be it the ways in which early on they manage to escape or the fire or the argument between the two men that has Simpel alone in Hamburg or the oh so dramatic rooftop scene with everybody arriving out of nowhere suddenly, virtually nothing out of all these felt really authentic in my opinion. And these are just major moments, there are a handful smaller scenes and minor moments that felt equally for the sake of it. You will recognize them when you see them.
What I did like, however, was most of the stuff involving the father, Striesow's character, if we ignore the ridiculous introduction where he does not even recognize his son after allegedly how much he has been talking about him and cared for him. But the rest is good. Striesow nails the epitome of a supporting performance here and one minor moment I liked was when he talked about the letters and how their mother kept them away from the boys, the letters that is. And how she kept the boys away from their father. We never know what it was really like and if he was telling the truth, but we don't need to find out either. After all Ben and Simpel don't know either. So why would we? You also never know where this is heading. There was the opportunity of Simpel getting to live with his dad and being taken care of there as he has the space and money to make it work. And I actually thought this could happen with how caring the man seemed initially, but the ways in which he calls Simpel Barnabas shows there is something else on his mind. He never managed to accept the imperfection of his second son, let alone give him the love he should have. Not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't and it is individual choice to decide how much you can blame him for that. The escalation at the party he was giving sure stayed memorable, even if it also was a bit too much in your face in my opinion. So they needed to find another somewhat happy ending and they did I guess. Overall, it is a relatively close call for me if I would recommend that film or not. It has some okay scenes and sure would have been worse with other actors at the center of it all like Schweighöfer for example, but there are so many minor negative moments that I just cannot give it a thumbs up. The best example is every really cringeworthy scene involving the buddy in the car who just gets kicked out early on. Was it Kostja Ullmann? I am not entirely sure honestly. But you know what I mean. How we see that he is not technically gifted, how we see him say they should drive on without the two. How he gets left behind. Is that friendship? Even if it was just a ONS, that's not how you should deal with somebody. Or how he is called something like an accident by Stein's character briefly afterward. Apart from that, the ways in which police is depicted here are cringeworthy to say the least, when they are pushed out of the car very early on, when they arrive during the scene when Simpel threatens the pimp with the gun they just couldn't care less at all. How they cannot catch the duo for a really long time. How they cannot even make sure the disabled boy runs away from them when he is in the shopping center bed. True amateurs and I cannot think of any police officer rating this film higher than a 2 or 3 out of 10. I will do so, but I still give it a thumbs-down as a whole as it falls into traps that many German films fall into these days where entertainment and lack of realism are more crucial than convincing story-telling and depth. Go watch something else instead.
What I did like, however, was most of the stuff involving the father, Striesow's character, if we ignore the ridiculous introduction where he does not even recognize his son after allegedly how much he has been talking about him and cared for him. But the rest is good. Striesow nails the epitome of a supporting performance here and one minor moment I liked was when he talked about the letters and how their mother kept them away from the boys, the letters that is. And how she kept the boys away from their father. We never know what it was really like and if he was telling the truth, but we don't need to find out either. After all Ben and Simpel don't know either. So why would we? You also never know where this is heading. There was the opportunity of Simpel getting to live with his dad and being taken care of there as he has the space and money to make it work. And I actually thought this could happen with how caring the man seemed initially, but the ways in which he calls Simpel Barnabas shows there is something else on his mind. He never managed to accept the imperfection of his second son, let alone give him the love he should have. Not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't and it is individual choice to decide how much you can blame him for that. The escalation at the party he was giving sure stayed memorable, even if it also was a bit too much in your face in my opinion. So they needed to find another somewhat happy ending and they did I guess. Overall, it is a relatively close call for me if I would recommend that film or not. It has some okay scenes and sure would have been worse with other actors at the center of it all like Schweighöfer for example, but there are so many minor negative moments that I just cannot give it a thumbs up. The best example is every really cringeworthy scene involving the buddy in the car who just gets kicked out early on. Was it Kostja Ullmann? I am not entirely sure honestly. But you know what I mean. How we see that he is not technically gifted, how we see him say they should drive on without the two. How he gets left behind. Is that friendship? Even if it was just a ONS, that's not how you should deal with somebody. Or how he is called something like an accident by Stein's character briefly afterward. Apart from that, the ways in which police is depicted here are cringeworthy to say the least, when they are pushed out of the car very early on, when they arrive during the scene when Simpel threatens the pimp with the gun they just couldn't care less at all. How they cannot catch the duo for a really long time. How they cannot even make sure the disabled boy runs away from them when he is in the shopping center bed. True amateurs and I cannot think of any police officer rating this film higher than a 2 or 3 out of 10. I will do so, but I still give it a thumbs-down as a whole as it falls into traps that many German films fall into these days where entertainment and lack of realism are more crucial than convincing story-telling and depth. Go watch something else instead.