"Ein Vater für Klette" or "A Father for Klette" is a German television film from 2003, so this one had its 15th anniversary last year, and this was written and directed by Peter Kahane, a pretty experienced and successful filmmaker who has also worked on several big screen releases. Anyway, this one here like most small screen stuff runs for 90 minutes approximately and despite its age it is shown here and there still on German television like today in the afternoon. You're probably more likely to catch it during the holiday season because of the time the film is set and honestly it is packed with Christmas-themed scenes visually at least. Christmas itself apart from that is not really too frequently referenced verbally by the key characters. These would be Heio von Stetten, Muriel Baumeister and Vespa Vasic with the latter being the child actress mentioned in the film's title. I thought she was pretty good. Yeah here and there she had a scene where maybe her line delivery did not feel the mostg authentic, but it was neither too frequent nor too grave and simply also the script was the reason because the lines simply weren't good and not just her delivery. So it's a bit of a pity she did not decide eventually to pursue a career in acting because I see some talent. But I hope she is happy now with her regular life away from the limelight. von Stetten and Baumeister of course are prolific actors and have been for a really long time. They are not outstanding I'd say, but clearly their looks and charisma kept them in the industry for that, probably rather that than extraordinary range. Baumeister is really stunning I cannot deny as a straight male.
Now as for the story of this movie. We have a little orphan girl whose biggest wish it is to have a father. And right at the film's very beginning we see her pick the central male character and we hear her voice telling us that this man actually became her father in the end, which is a bit of a spoiler, but yeah honestly it was clear we'd get a happy ending here anyway, so nothing bad. Actually I quite liked the child actress' voice-over work and found it a bit sad that it was really only handled this way at the very beginning. Now as for the key story, it is really all about romance, actually a lot more than about the adoption tale. The two central characters, even if they need a while, get together in the end, which was also very expected, but on the road to them becoming a couple there are also many other characters involved. Like the male protagonist has two pretty attractive women in his life as well who clearly have an interest in him. First is played by Sabrina White, who is still nothing more than a friend to him as it turns out and the second is played by Dana Golombek, who I immediately recognized from "Die Camper". I mean it was not really too nice how the girl faked the illness (or did she= apparently she really has a fever) to make her leave, but yeah I think at this point we are on a level that already makes it easy for us to like and dislike exactly who Kahane wanted us to dislike with his script. A bit manipulative I cannot deny. Still I think the film has some pretty good moments, like I enjoyed the scenes in which Vasic was featured prominently, everything else did not have a great impact on me unfortunately. And as there was a lot of everything else really and honestly the writing and acting is just okay at best, sometimes disappointing and even a bit generic and cringeworthy, so there is no way I can give this film a thumbs-up. It is better than many other films shown here in Germany during the Christmas season, but admittedly this is mostly because many of them are really really bad with horrible screenplays. This one here is not failure level, but my suggestion is nonetheless that you skip the watch. I give it a thumbs-down.
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