"Verliebt in Masuren" is a German television film from 2018, September 2018 to be precise, so a film that is really not too old, slightly over two years. The title means "In love with/in..." and "Masuren" is an area in Poland, which I did not know before seeing this one, so you could say there's your educational component. Anyway, the fact that I wrote "with/in" is because in German poth words are possible, so it is a little play on words if they are in love with this region or in love wwith somebody (or something) while in this region. That's really the only somewhat smart film about this movie. It is not a prequel or sequel or anything, but there are series in Germany here with the same words in the title, such as "Eine Liebe in" (A love in) or like the one we have here "Verliebt in" followed by a region or city or whatever. So it is certainly quantity over quality and a cheesy, rather cheap romance tale we got here. I think another entry to this series is set in the Netherlands. That one I saw. There's probably more I did not see, but can't be arsed to check now. These films do not really deserve my (or anybody else's) attention anyway. The film runs for 1.5 hours as they usually do and the director is Bruno Grass (not Günter Ganz, sorry I just had to). He has acted in the past, but also directed quite a bit, mostly television series episodes, but here and there also a movie, so he was definitely not a rookie coming into this project, but also far from highly experienced. His body of work is certainly mostly quantity over quality and it does not get me curious about watching anything from him, so I was almost surprised that this did not become a failure. As I expected. The screenplay is by Kerstin Römer. Her first and so far only writing credita ccording to imdb. But as I said it's not too long ago and who knows, maybe she will come up with more screenplays in the future. Right now, it seems as if she focuses on acting again, which is her main profession. She also acts in this film. Not a huge surprise. As for the rest of the cast, no big names at all. Even the lead Bauer is not known to me at all. May be my loss though. He is not that horrible, actually among the movie's better components. Same is true for his female counterpart Lina Wendel. Her I only know from a film I watched at the movie theater a few years ago. But she is alright and the fact that she plays a Polish woman, so speaks German with a Polish accent most of the time, could have gone really wrong, but she is alright sort-of. Supporting cast the same really. Some attractive actresses there, most of all Schäfer, but no big names at all. Not even small names really. ust tiny names. I think many cast members here may have Polish roots or a connection to the country despite being German. You can see it from their names. Not a surprise either because the majority of the film is set in Poland.
As for the story, we have a dusgruntled old man and he struggles with the women in charge of taking care of him. This is until the female protagonist shows up. Don't worry, she is not as bad as it seems on the cringeworthy poster here on imdb. There are even a few fun moments like when he insults her home country and she leaves and you could think she is never seen again, but instead she gives an order via phone for the time when there will be food. Or later on when they are in Poland and he sits there in the car looking not too happy at all with the wild children surrounding the car. They are joy. He is the island of misery somehow. Another okay moment was the sequence of joke-telling at the table, at least the very old woman (actress no longer with us anymore) who says if she was only ten years younger and somebody else says that, even then, she would still be way too old for him. When the male protagonist tells his joke later on and nobody finds it funny at all, it's a bit cringeworthy and with that I don't mean the awkward silence and face expressions from the characters, but really how this was written and acted, so the filmmaking components. It was definitely not as entertaining (let alone funny) as it could have been. I was a bit skeptical about the story with his childhood friend and how a woman got between the two and ruined their friendship for decades, but at least the solution on the boat in the end was alright. Other than that, the story did not make much of an impact on me and definitely did not deliver emotionally as they pretended it does. It was also the small moment where it sucked, like when he goes there to see his former buddy and then leaves again, but the buddy looks right his direction as if he saw him when he is gone already. Now that was a bit pretentious. Not gonna lie. This film is definitely not half as deep as it pretends to be. What else can I say? Well, taking into account that Ziegler Film, Theaterkunst GmbH and also Degeto (I think) were involved with the production of this one (the trifecta of German television garbage films), this turned out surprisingly well. It may have many weaknesses and I certainly do not give out a positive recommendation here (there was not a single moment where I even thought about it), but also if we take the weak title into account, I definitely expected this film to be considerably worse than it actually was. I guess this says it all about how terrible these films usually are. It still must be noted that there were key moments that did absolutely nothing and it takes a special absence of talent to for example make a wedding seem this uninteresting and bland, so yeah not a good movie. But luckily, they also left out these shocker moments of pseudo drama you usually get with Degeto etc. For example, the groom could have been scared before the wedding and could have had the intention to cancel it before the forced happy ending. Or the old guy could have fallen into the water in the end and his childhood friend could have saved him because he can't swim, especially not with his injured arm. But instead they went for quietly convincing, which did not work out too often, but was still the right choice. My suggestion is nonetheless that you watch something else instead.
As for the story, we have a dusgruntled old man and he struggles with the women in charge of taking care of him. This is until the female protagonist shows up. Don't worry, she is not as bad as it seems on the cringeworthy poster here on imdb. There are even a few fun moments like when he insults her home country and she leaves and you could think she is never seen again, but instead she gives an order via phone for the time when there will be food. Or later on when they are in Poland and he sits there in the car looking not too happy at all with the wild children surrounding the car. They are joy. He is the island of misery somehow. Another okay moment was the sequence of joke-telling at the table, at least the very old woman (actress no longer with us anymore) who says if she was only ten years younger and somebody else says that, even then, she would still be way too old for him. When the male protagonist tells his joke later on and nobody finds it funny at all, it's a bit cringeworthy and with that I don't mean the awkward silence and face expressions from the characters, but really how this was written and acted, so the filmmaking components. It was definitely not as entertaining (let alone funny) as it could have been. I was a bit skeptical about the story with his childhood friend and how a woman got between the two and ruined their friendship for decades, but at least the solution on the boat in the end was alright. Other than that, the story did not make much of an impact on me and definitely did not deliver emotionally as they pretended it does. It was also the small moment where it sucked, like when he goes there to see his former buddy and then leaves again, but the buddy looks right his direction as if he saw him when he is gone already. Now that was a bit pretentious. Not gonna lie. This film is definitely not half as deep as it pretends to be. What else can I say? Well, taking into account that Ziegler Film, Theaterkunst GmbH and also Degeto (I think) were involved with the production of this one (the trifecta of German television garbage films), this turned out surprisingly well. It may have many weaknesses and I certainly do not give out a positive recommendation here (there was not a single moment where I even thought about it), but also if we take the weak title into account, I definitely expected this film to be considerably worse than it actually was. I guess this says it all about how terrible these films usually are. It still must be noted that there were key moments that did absolutely nothing and it takes a special absence of talent to for example make a wedding seem this uninteresting and bland, so yeah not a good movie. But luckily, they also left out these shocker moments of pseudo drama you usually get with Degeto etc. For example, the groom could have been scared before the wedding and could have had the intention to cancel it before the forced happy ending. Or the old guy could have fallen into the water in the end and his childhood friend could have saved him because he can't swim, especially not with his injured arm. But instead they went for quietly convincing, which did not work out too often, but was still the right choice. My suggestion is nonetheless that you watch something else instead.