"Anderst schön" (highly clumsy title, not smart or funny, also impossible to translate) is a German television movie that aired originally back in June 2015, so it is not too long anymore until this one has its 5th anniversary. Most likely it happened already depending on when you read this review. The director is Polish filmmaker Bartosz Werner and this was his third full feature movie. Actually it is still his most recent work and I wonder if he will ever make a movie again. By the way, despite his roots all his movies are German productions and I'd say his body of work is alright overall. The writer is Wolfgang Stauch and he was already more prolific than Werner back then and still is today, even if admittedly focusing on stuff like "Tatort" is nothing to be proud of. So there is greater quantity in his body of work, but also more projects that do kinda suck if we compare it to Werner's. Their collaboration here runs for 1.5 hours, slightly under, as it is usually the case for television films here in Germany. The lead actor is Charly Hübner and I am a bit of a fan of him. I will still try to stay relatively objective. Most people know Hübner only from "Das Leben der Anderen" (from a decade earlier) if at all, but he has given other decent performances in his career. Nice to see him in the lead for once. The rest of the cast also include some familiar faces, such as Steffi Kühnert and Kida Khodr Ramadan, although I must say that with the former I was surprised how small her role here was. Older audiences will perhaps recognize Hermann Beyer or Renate Kröner (Solo Sunny). But even if you don't know any of these, Hübner's performance and also the pretty amazing Emilie Neumeister can win you over easily. The one I haven't mentioned yet is Christina Große, who has her 50th birthday this year. It surprises me a bit to see she was the only one who received awards recognition for her turn here. I mean she was not even near the best performances this film had to offer, just had more screen time than most of the others. I don't share the praise when it comes to her. Must say I am not too familiar with her as an actress in general, but her portrayal here did not change that for me.
I think it is a decent film at times. After the first hour, I was still positive that maybe I could recommend this movie and give it two stars more than I eventually did. The dialogues did not always feel realistic and all the subplots have not been too amazing, but also not too shabby.. With this, I am talking about the violent neighbor and the self-defense solution, the Turkish restaurant owner and his son's focus on graffiti, the old man and his dog or the hippie couple who are basically herb sorcerers if you want to say so. Without the gift of magic though. Maybe what I liekd most was the sheep story linked to the Turkish guy and it was kinda cute, but then again I always liked sheep, so no surprise there. The story at the center of it all with Hübner's character who is the connection between all these side stories, but also has his own struggles and history was alright too for the most part. Sadly, in the final half hour they really messed things up. Specific moments of dialogue writing already created doubts for me if this was really a decent movie, but the way how the female love interest gets a job that another character wanted (and the escalation) at the pub/restaurant were already the beginning of the end quality-wise. The worst moment of the movie, however, is when the protagonist and his mother end up on this talk show. I mean the whole SMS idea with the two future lovebirds not knowing who they are texting with was already bad enough, but the talk show scene was a true insult to the audience. The mother's collapse later on and how she confesses at the hospital that she (probably) knows who the protagonist's father is (and of course it is a familiar character) was just cringeworthy. The latter also describes perfectly the fact that there is an alarm signal when he leaves the hospital room and the employees are heading to see what's wrong and we know she will die and it is also briefly stated by what the main character says at the very end (or doesn't say) when he summarizes the characters. Such a pity they messed things up so hard towards the end. These are the moments that are the reason why I have to give this movie a negative recommendation. Then again, people who don't like Hübner as much as I do would have anyway as they may have liked it less. Still I think there are decent moments. The brief reference about how much and when beavers sleep had me in stitches, the only aspect where the comedy worked truly fine. I also liked Neumeister's character and I hope she keeps acting as she grows older. There the writing was better. With that I mean how she becomes friends with Hübner's character (after a bad start) and even helps the clumsy shy guy with his dating adventures. Or that, even if she likes the graffiti kid, they did not feel obliged to create a love story for her too. There are the better moments and inclusions. Sadly, all in all, they are not frequent enough to keep this film from being too low on the quality scale overall. Watch something else instead. Also seeing how this aired during prime time even, in the maybe best slot German television has to offer, I must say once again that it is highly disgraceful that ARD forces people to pay them money to create entertainment and come up with projects that is/are much lower on the quality scale than it should be. Disgusting.
I think it is a decent film at times. After the first hour, I was still positive that maybe I could recommend this movie and give it two stars more than I eventually did. The dialogues did not always feel realistic and all the subplots have not been too amazing, but also not too shabby.. With this, I am talking about the violent neighbor and the self-defense solution, the Turkish restaurant owner and his son's focus on graffiti, the old man and his dog or the hippie couple who are basically herb sorcerers if you want to say so. Without the gift of magic though. Maybe what I liekd most was the sheep story linked to the Turkish guy and it was kinda cute, but then again I always liked sheep, so no surprise there. The story at the center of it all with Hübner's character who is the connection between all these side stories, but also has his own struggles and history was alright too for the most part. Sadly, in the final half hour they really messed things up. Specific moments of dialogue writing already created doubts for me if this was really a decent movie, but the way how the female love interest gets a job that another character wanted (and the escalation) at the pub/restaurant were already the beginning of the end quality-wise. The worst moment of the movie, however, is when the protagonist and his mother end up on this talk show. I mean the whole SMS idea with the two future lovebirds not knowing who they are texting with was already bad enough, but the talk show scene was a true insult to the audience. The mother's collapse later on and how she confesses at the hospital that she (probably) knows who the protagonist's father is (and of course it is a familiar character) was just cringeworthy. The latter also describes perfectly the fact that there is an alarm signal when he leaves the hospital room and the employees are heading to see what's wrong and we know she will die and it is also briefly stated by what the main character says at the very end (or doesn't say) when he summarizes the characters. Such a pity they messed things up so hard towards the end. These are the moments that are the reason why I have to give this movie a negative recommendation. Then again, people who don't like Hübner as much as I do would have anyway as they may have liked it less. Still I think there are decent moments. The brief reference about how much and when beavers sleep had me in stitches, the only aspect where the comedy worked truly fine. I also liked Neumeister's character and I hope she keeps acting as she grows older. There the writing was better. With that I mean how she becomes friends with Hübner's character (after a bad start) and even helps the clumsy shy guy with his dating adventures. Or that, even if she likes the graffiti kid, they did not feel obliged to create a love story for her too. There are the better moments and inclusions. Sadly, all in all, they are not frequent enough to keep this film from being too low on the quality scale overall. Watch something else instead. Also seeing how this aired during prime time even, in the maybe best slot German television has to offer, I must say once again that it is highly disgraceful that ARD forces people to pay them money to create entertainment and come up with projects that is/are much lower on the quality scale than it should be. Disgusting.
