"Wen die Liebe trifft..." is a German television film from 2005 and I am not sure what is the bigger disappointment here for me: that this film even got made and released or that, over 15 years later, it is still on national television. But first things first: This is another ARD Degeto production of course and just like they always do, this one here runs for 1.5 hours or minimally under. The directo is Dagmar Damek who launched her career back in 1970, so she would have had her 50th anniversary last year, but she stopped making films quite some time ago, which is probably a good thing, especially if we are taking a look at all she did in the first decade of the new millennium, which is all absolutely terrible. May sound harsh, but it is true. I cannot say anything about her early works really, but the more recent stuff is highly unwatchable and this is one example. She is in her mid70s now and was born in Poland by the way. For approximately half of her works, she wrote the screenplays herself, especially early in her career, but not this time. For that, they got Nicole Walter-Lingen, apparently not related to Theo and it makes sense because he was really good and talented and she is the exact opposite. Rosamunde Pilcher adaptations. Utta Danella adaptations. Marienhof. Eine Liebe am Gardasee. I think I have made my point. This woman has probably never achieved something of good quality in her writing career, but all she does is cash in on everybody's GEZ money. Truly despicable. Utter absence of talent when it comes to her and compared to her Damek is a goddess really. Sad thing is NWL is still working these days, still gets hired to write screenplay. Unreal stuff. Then again, you can't really blame her. She makes solid bucks despite sait absence of writing talent. The ones who choose her are the ones to blame even more.
Back to this one here now: The cast includes some people that are still fairly known over 1.5 decades later. Franziska Petri is probably the actress whose character is at the center of the story the most. I am a bit undecided with her if she is attractive or not attractive at all. But she is definitely not on a level where handsome men would tell her they cannot sleep, they cannot eat etc. What was that? Her sister is played by Bettina Zimmermann and on her I have crushed for quite some time. Maybe still do a little bit. But I won't be blind here. She may be stunning, but she is not a good actress either and her body of work is pretty self-explanatory. I am more surprised that Petri is in this film and not that Zimmermann is, but maybe I rated Petri too highly too. And then there is Diana Amft. Not a lot to say about her. If you have seen her once, you have seen it all. Utter absence of talent and her characters are almost always linked to some sexual component, like with in this film here shhe keeps kissing and licking a guy's nipples. Most of the time, her characters are likable and this film here is the closest she comes to being an antagonist. Still her character has her nice moments like. I will come to one example later on. Erol Sander was the male lead or biggest male supporting player and he managed the impossible to make the terrible writing to his character seem even worse with his unwatchable performance. Noe excuse there. Fritz Karl is an actor who has been successful for a long time. Here he has little to work with, also dialogue-wise and his character has almost nothing to say and seems also quite a bit younger than the actor was in 2005 already. Still kinda ironic that here he has Zimmermann or her character as his partner, while in real life he is with an even less talented and more over-the-top actress that does not possess 1% of Zimmermann's looks. Verhoeven turned into a successful filmmaker himself later on. And finally, Hanns Zischler plays the father. Which makes me a bit sad. He is so much better than this film and really should not have accepted the part.
Now a few words on the story. It is basically a lost cause from the start. I will just do some brainstorming about scenes and inclusions that I still remember. Not chronologically. A definite contender for worst scene is when we have Petri's and Sander's character's talk and he makes a reference about Tai Chi, about men and women and then realizes as a consequence of that that he is late for a wedding. And runs off. And if that was not terrible enough already, we find out during the next scene that it is his own wedding. He is the groom. Sure thing. This is also where I can mention the act of kindness by Amft's character. No bicycle orgasms this time, but when she hears somebody say something mean to her grandma, she steps away from the altar and goes back to the audience and comforts the old woman. That was indeed nice, but also very unrealistic that such a situation already arises during a wedding and of course, exactly when they are supposed to say "Yes". We find out quickly that this marrie is not a happy one and the only valid question is why they even married. He does not really seem to love her. She is having an affair too. Makes very much sense to get married then. However, this is where things get really complicated. Let's summarize: Amft is married to Sander. Sander and Petri fall for each other. Petri is Zimmermann's sister. Zimmermann is with Verhoeven. Verhoeven is Amft's affair. (I leave out "'s character", so it is easier to understand). So messed-up really and all nonsense. Also how the two people who get married early on literally run into each other cheating in the park. Must be a truly small village. Realism is absolutelly not existent in this film. You can also take the situation how quickly the two lovebirds/protagonists see each other again on the occasion of the porcelain negotiation. Yep, of course the characters here (the two women) are from a distinguished family with an old traditional business and love drinking chammpagne as well. At least, Zimmermann's character does on one occasion. This is also where further lack of realism comes into play when some of the aforementioned romantic shenanigans get in the way of important business contracts.
This is not all yet. Not even close. Zischler's character also gets an amazing moment when his character all of a sudden has a heart attack, utterly for the sake of fake drama, after he finds out his daughter is pregnant from a man who left her. But no worries. Only minutes later he is already out of the hospital and walking around as if nothing happened at all. A heart attack filler material huh? A good film could have used this one plot inclusion to construct a quality movie around it, but here we have the exact opposite of a quality movie of course. As I stated earlier, pretty ridiculous that this is still on national television. Oh and as always with Degeto, the ending is 100% happy for our beloved characters. While Amft's character has to dance with an old chubby guy, Zimmermann's character is pregnant and with a doctor who finally tells her that he loves her although they have really not been with each other for a long time. And who also accepts her to soon give birth to somebody else's baby. What happens next? They marry. Of course, they do. Not rushed at all. Petri's character (somehow I keep thinking the actress is Austrian) on the other hand has her dream guy too (Sander). And what happens next? They marry too. Are you kidding me. Zimmermann's character's rushed marriage would have been too absurd already, but they do it twice. This is really where they were giving the audience the middle finger. Unreal. The sad thing is some people probably really perceived this film as a realistic character study on strong independent women. I feel bad for them. But I applaud everybody, especially every woman, who sees through this charade instead of drooling over Verhoeven's rain-soaked topless body. And treat the outcome the way they should. By switching it off at minute one. An absolutely unwatchable film with so many terribly uninspired moments. And yes, this also includes the "cute" hiccup. Highly not recommended. And please Robbie Williams, go sue the makers here for copyrght reasons and this way keep this film from ever being shown again.
Back to this one here now: The cast includes some people that are still fairly known over 1.5 decades later. Franziska Petri is probably the actress whose character is at the center of the story the most. I am a bit undecided with her if she is attractive or not attractive at all. But she is definitely not on a level where handsome men would tell her they cannot sleep, they cannot eat etc. What was that? Her sister is played by Bettina Zimmermann and on her I have crushed for quite some time. Maybe still do a little bit. But I won't be blind here. She may be stunning, but she is not a good actress either and her body of work is pretty self-explanatory. I am more surprised that Petri is in this film and not that Zimmermann is, but maybe I rated Petri too highly too. And then there is Diana Amft. Not a lot to say about her. If you have seen her once, you have seen it all. Utter absence of talent and her characters are almost always linked to some sexual component, like with in this film here shhe keeps kissing and licking a guy's nipples. Most of the time, her characters are likable and this film here is the closest she comes to being an antagonist. Still her character has her nice moments like. I will come to one example later on. Erol Sander was the male lead or biggest male supporting player and he managed the impossible to make the terrible writing to his character seem even worse with his unwatchable performance. Noe excuse there. Fritz Karl is an actor who has been successful for a long time. Here he has little to work with, also dialogue-wise and his character has almost nothing to say and seems also quite a bit younger than the actor was in 2005 already. Still kinda ironic that here he has Zimmermann or her character as his partner, while in real life he is with an even less talented and more over-the-top actress that does not possess 1% of Zimmermann's looks. Verhoeven turned into a successful filmmaker himself later on. And finally, Hanns Zischler plays the father. Which makes me a bit sad. He is so much better than this film and really should not have accepted the part.
Now a few words on the story. It is basically a lost cause from the start. I will just do some brainstorming about scenes and inclusions that I still remember. Not chronologically. A definite contender for worst scene is when we have Petri's and Sander's character's talk and he makes a reference about Tai Chi, about men and women and then realizes as a consequence of that that he is late for a wedding. And runs off. And if that was not terrible enough already, we find out during the next scene that it is his own wedding. He is the groom. Sure thing. This is also where I can mention the act of kindness by Amft's character. No bicycle orgasms this time, but when she hears somebody say something mean to her grandma, she steps away from the altar and goes back to the audience and comforts the old woman. That was indeed nice, but also very unrealistic that such a situation already arises during a wedding and of course, exactly when they are supposed to say "Yes". We find out quickly that this marrie is not a happy one and the only valid question is why they even married. He does not really seem to love her. She is having an affair too. Makes very much sense to get married then. However, this is where things get really complicated. Let's summarize: Amft is married to Sander. Sander and Petri fall for each other. Petri is Zimmermann's sister. Zimmermann is with Verhoeven. Verhoeven is Amft's affair. (I leave out "'s character", so it is easier to understand). So messed-up really and all nonsense. Also how the two people who get married early on literally run into each other cheating in the park. Must be a truly small village. Realism is absolutelly not existent in this film. You can also take the situation how quickly the two lovebirds/protagonists see each other again on the occasion of the porcelain negotiation. Yep, of course the characters here (the two women) are from a distinguished family with an old traditional business and love drinking chammpagne as well. At least, Zimmermann's character does on one occasion. This is also where further lack of realism comes into play when some of the aforementioned romantic shenanigans get in the way of important business contracts.
This is not all yet. Not even close. Zischler's character also gets an amazing moment when his character all of a sudden has a heart attack, utterly for the sake of fake drama, after he finds out his daughter is pregnant from a man who left her. But no worries. Only minutes later he is already out of the hospital and walking around as if nothing happened at all. A heart attack filler material huh? A good film could have used this one plot inclusion to construct a quality movie around it, but here we have the exact opposite of a quality movie of course. As I stated earlier, pretty ridiculous that this is still on national television. Oh and as always with Degeto, the ending is 100% happy for our beloved characters. While Amft's character has to dance with an old chubby guy, Zimmermann's character is pregnant and with a doctor who finally tells her that he loves her although they have really not been with each other for a long time. And who also accepts her to soon give birth to somebody else's baby. What happens next? They marry. Of course, they do. Not rushed at all. Petri's character (somehow I keep thinking the actress is Austrian) on the other hand has her dream guy too (Sander). And what happens next? They marry too. Are you kidding me. Zimmermann's character's rushed marriage would have been too absurd already, but they do it twice. This is really where they were giving the audience the middle finger. Unreal. The sad thing is some people probably really perceived this film as a realistic character study on strong independent women. I feel bad for them. But I applaud everybody, especially every woman, who sees through this charade instead of drooling over Verhoeven's rain-soaked topless body. And treat the outcome the way they should. By switching it off at minute one. An absolutely unwatchable film with so many terribly uninspired moments. And yes, this also includes the "cute" hiccup. Highly not recommended. And please Robbie Williams, go sue the makers here for copyrght reasons and this way keep this film from ever being shown again.
