This is what subtle, good acting is all about. This film makes you warm (if not melt) from the inside and want to fall in love again. You actually do fall in love with the couple while watching them fall for each other. How many approaches at this topic have we seen in movies, huh? A million. This one stands out. The leading actress, for instance, was never ever my type, but she is one hell of an actor! Him I cannot find enough praise for, although I must admit to detect a slight similarity in character (or is it interpretation - I must go back and watch!) throughout the films I've seen him in. Anyway, to cut a long story short: enjoy this one, it's worth every second!
2 Reviews
Who could believe them?
przgzr26 April 2004
Warning: Spoilers
I didn't expect much when I taped this movie, so I watched it two or three years later having nothing else to do. Well, I should have watched it much before, just to make free space on the tape.
* major spoilers *
On the very beginning it looks like some typical doctor-hospital movie (like E.R.). Nothing unusual for Germans, I don't know any other nation to make so many doctors a star in movies or serials. But, unusual is that this doctor who looks for a job stays unemployed. Soon he, Jens, gets in a relation and just a few days later the girl, Mieke, moves in, but he keeps his unemployment a secret. Suddenly movie reminded me on 'Betty Blue' or at least 'Something Wild': the girl appears to be unpredictably spontaneous and unconventional maybe over standard limits. It doesn't take long and we see Jens lying so much that he can't be compared to male character in Betty Blue, and the girl isn't psychotic at all. Next she gets fired. Now we expect something to change, we believe they have to earn money, struggle to survive (either some social Ken Loach type of movie, or maybe they'll rob a bank like film noir?). But no: she hides it and they both lie to each other and every day pretend to go to work. For a short while movie turns to a comedy. Mieke discovers he is lying and leaves him. First he tries to find her, then she tries to find him (we could imagine Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan doing it). And it ends like a romance that nobody older than nine can believe in.
* small spoilers *
Funny in some scenes. Some unusual moments (especially for this kind of movie) break clichés and make it watchable (unemployed doctor as the hero!?, scenes when Jens tries to get a job, or the "job" he really gets), but mostly changes break the rhythm of movie and even almost change genre (whatever it is), so it stays just watchable. And the characters... Maybe they spoil the movie. I simply can't make myself like any of them (except his grandmother). He is a pathologic liar. Trying to find a job he pretends to be always a different person, and lies his girl all the time. She isn't any better. And her face is annoying. The actress doesn't have to be beautiful at all to be a star in romance movie, but in most scenes I could imagine her only as an unmarried teacher in XIX century punishing little kids in some small village school. Oh, yes, she could be Cinderellas stepsister, too. Jenses friend, doctor, finds him some jobs, but never warns him what he is expected to be (if he is lying and acting, he should know what mask to wear). During the movie it seemed he could have an affair with Mieke, but it would be too much for the writers: the plot is as linear as the highway. All supporting characters exist only to keep the plot in a line.
* one more big... *
And I can't avoid the end. Did the writers ask their kindergarten children how the movie should end? After being apart so long, not talking at all, suddenly they fall in love again when they don't even see each other? And who on Earth could believe that they'll faithfully wait for each other a whole year, when they lied to each other all the time when they were together?!
If you can choose between movies playing on different channels, you'll probably find a better one. If you have seen those better already... well, reconsider watching them again.
* major spoilers *
On the very beginning it looks like some typical doctor-hospital movie (like E.R.). Nothing unusual for Germans, I don't know any other nation to make so many doctors a star in movies or serials. But, unusual is that this doctor who looks for a job stays unemployed. Soon he, Jens, gets in a relation and just a few days later the girl, Mieke, moves in, but he keeps his unemployment a secret. Suddenly movie reminded me on 'Betty Blue' or at least 'Something Wild': the girl appears to be unpredictably spontaneous and unconventional maybe over standard limits. It doesn't take long and we see Jens lying so much that he can't be compared to male character in Betty Blue, and the girl isn't psychotic at all. Next she gets fired. Now we expect something to change, we believe they have to earn money, struggle to survive (either some social Ken Loach type of movie, or maybe they'll rob a bank like film noir?). But no: she hides it and they both lie to each other and every day pretend to go to work. For a short while movie turns to a comedy. Mieke discovers he is lying and leaves him. First he tries to find her, then she tries to find him (we could imagine Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan doing it). And it ends like a romance that nobody older than nine can believe in.
* small spoilers *
Funny in some scenes. Some unusual moments (especially for this kind of movie) break clichés and make it watchable (unemployed doctor as the hero!?, scenes when Jens tries to get a job, or the "job" he really gets), but mostly changes break the rhythm of movie and even almost change genre (whatever it is), so it stays just watchable. And the characters... Maybe they spoil the movie. I simply can't make myself like any of them (except his grandmother). He is a pathologic liar. Trying to find a job he pretends to be always a different person, and lies his girl all the time. She isn't any better. And her face is annoying. The actress doesn't have to be beautiful at all to be a star in romance movie, but in most scenes I could imagine her only as an unmarried teacher in XIX century punishing little kids in some small village school. Oh, yes, she could be Cinderellas stepsister, too. Jenses friend, doctor, finds him some jobs, but never warns him what he is expected to be (if he is lying and acting, he should know what mask to wear). During the movie it seemed he could have an affair with Mieke, but it would be too much for the writers: the plot is as linear as the highway. All supporting characters exist only to keep the plot in a line.
* one more big... *
And I can't avoid the end. Did the writers ask their kindergarten children how the movie should end? After being apart so long, not talking at all, suddenly they fall in love again when they don't even see each other? And who on Earth could believe that they'll faithfully wait for each other a whole year, when they lied to each other all the time when they were together?!
If you can choose between movies playing on different channels, you'll probably find a better one. If you have seen those better already... well, reconsider watching them again.
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