Horst_In_Translation Review of Tiger Girl

Tiger Girl (2017)

A good story at its core, but not always well-executed

[4/10 · 28 April 2018]

"Tiger Girl" is a German 90-minute movie fronm 2017, so a very fresh and new release at this point still, not completely new though. It is the third full feature work by director Jakob Lass, who is also a writer here and like with his other works he cast Franz Rogowski, who by the way won a German Film Award last night. Anyway, this is mostly a female-centered film though with two protagonists at its very core, both somewhat struggling in live in general, but especially with job issues and relationships to other people because of their unconventional characters. Ella Rumpf is not known to me yet, but she was okay overall. Same is true for Dragus, except she is fairly famous in Germany and not just for a short time. Like I wrote in the title of my review, I think that this is a decnt film from the script perspective. The ideas it has on authenticity and realism are certainly among the movie's biggest strengths and it is also very good that the film never tries to go for unrealistic feel-good moments. It''s raw, brutal and accurate. Sadly, there are too many moments when the film loses itself in the filmmakers' attempts to also make a massive statement in terms of style and the sound track is just one example for me when it comes to that. There's more and you will see it when it happens. Also maybe a bit in terms of make-up and behavior, some of the characters, also central characters, are too much over the top here and there. I think this could have been a pretty good crime drama, maybe even with coming-of-age aspects, but they did not took that path as much as I would have liked. Instead they tried to get in showiness, maybe to make the movie more interesting to large audiences. But they sacrificed too much for that for me too give it a thumbs-up and a positive recommendation. It sure has its moments here and thee, but for 1.5 hours it simply isn't enough and the negative is more frquent than the positive I must say. Really a pity, as there was the potential for one of the better, if not best, films of 2017 from Germany. Watch something else instead.