"Verunsichert - Alles Gute für die Zukunft" is a new german television movie as this aired in early September for the first time, exactly ten days ago now, so yes it is really new and fresh. The title of these 1.5 hours means "Insecure: All the Best for the Future", but it feels equally clumsy than the German title and, even worse, it is lost in translation a bit because there is a play on words in the original title with the German word for insurance. But yeah, this title already shows what to expectg here, namely utter absence of quality and creativity. Everything on the right side of the - feels so random and should have been left out, but if the title had only been "Verunsichert", it would not have been any better because it says nothing about the film. They really managed to get it all wrong from the start here. "They" mostly refers to writer and director Jörg Lühdorff. Welll, what can I say about him. He is in his 50s now, pretty experienced, but not a great body of work, although admmittedly his body of work also could be way worse. This film here is probably a contender for his worst career effort so far. I am not 100% sure, but I think when this film premiered 1.5 eeks ago it was during prime time on ARD, so really a prestigious time slot, but also shows you how low the level there has become already. ARD is truly despicable now with their very one-sided new coverage and also with the hundreds, probably thousands, of garbage films they have produced and shown over the years. Zeitsprung Pictures has been a part of many of those and here is their newest addition. Same for Degeto although I am not sure they were a part of this project. But quality-wise it is all the same, namely the complete absence of quality. On the photo here as well you see lead actress Henny Reents. She is not Dutch as you could think from the name, but she is German and it is not too often at all that you see ginger actresses with freckles here in lead roles in movies from my country. But this is really the only thing that stands out about her. I thought she was far away from the level that she should have for a lead performance on national television. The rest of the cast there is not too much to say. Here and there a familiar face, but overall even for me as a German film buff really difficult to remember any of the actors this time. I guess this shows were all your GEZ money goes, folks. Stand up. The onc exception is Martin Brambach. Him I have liked for a long time and thanks to my personal preference, he also made the film watchable at least at times as his character is also not completely minor luckily and he has a solid amount of screen time overall. But even he can obviously not turn this mess of a movie into something decent. Not even into something weak. It stays horrible. Makes me a bit sad to see he accepts roles in films like this, even if his character was admittedly not as much of a failure writing-wise as most of the rest.
Speaking of failure, let me elabborate a bit on the plot and story now and pointg out why I felt this was a horrible movie. The key criticism is one I have for many of these films, namely that it does all, especially atg the end, to please the audience and on the way there come extremely short in terms of realism, depth and significance. Almost everything here rings false in terms of how it feels unauthentic and for the sake of it. And what makes this especially bad is that this is a film that wants to do nothing except go for realism in telling the story of a woman who leaves a big law firm to help simple people. I mean take one character's suicide, take the widow storming into the office although she should not have been able to. Take the money struggles resulting from Brambach's character's behavior. Take the latter's tragic family background. (Honestly I would have liked the plot twist that he killed his unfaithful wife and her loved back then, but never gonna happen.) Take the really cringeworthy scene in which Brambach's character hires her. Take the courts ruling in our beloved character's favor. Take the idea that a super rich insurer loses a six-figure case against a lawyer who has never worked on a case on her own. Take that said lawyer is far from being somebody who has a winning personality, but is rather shy. Take the scene when they speak bad about her and not only does she hear it, but the exact same second, somebody calls her name, sothe bullies realize what they did and that she is there. Take her (former) colleague's change of mind in the end when she supports the protagonist. In reality, she never would have met the protagonist again after the latter quit. Take Reents' really poor acting moment when she realizes that almost all the money is gone. I cringed when she screamed. Take the equally bad reaction from another female central character, well key supporting character, when she finds out that the insurer will not accept legal defeat and simply move on to the next court. How unexpected. There is honestly so, so much wrong with this film that I could write another three paragraphs about that, but i guess you kkinda get the message already by all these things I just mentioned. It is this poor yes. Also the reference towards the end when the likable victims are ready to surrender because the sick husband can no longer deal with the stress. So out of nowhere, again that much pseudo drama. So yeah, what do we have here? The antagonist is a ruthless male who is no longer a friend anymore in the end, but would have liked to be because our ginger lawyer is so smart and amazing and maybe even hot. Nah. The second male is one who loses all his moeny in strip clubs. And number three is one who is so weak and struggles with his health that he may keep super lawyer from winning her case. Nothing new here at all. ARD movies since the early 2000s are almost always anti-male because they are mostly made for female audiences. I applaud every single female who is smart enough to not fall for this scame. The females here of course are great, be it the wife of the ailing man, be it the colleague who, as I wrote earlier, in the end joins super lawyer or be it super lawyer herself. The moment when she is asked by the folks why she is talking to them and that she is not allowed to and she responds somethhing like she does not care about that now was another extremely poorly acted scene from Reents. There's a lot more. poorly acted? Check. Poorly written? Check. Poor execution all along? Super check! The bad news is that this film here was presented in a way where it could even result into several sequels. I hope not. They must not burn our GEZ money any further. What I also found embarrassing is that they say this is based on an actual character. With a different name though and said real life person (Beatrix, not Sandra, Hüller) gets to play a judge in this film very briefly. If I was her, then I totally would have refused to be a part of this mess, but seems like with the different names, ARD already managed to be on the safe side that there could not be any legal consequences. Genuinely, could there be anything worse than a garbage film like this one being made about your life? Massive thumbs-down from every perspective. Highly not recommended and the worst of it all is really the oh so happy ending and how everything linked to it, especially the last 20 minutes with all the pseudo drama leading up there, feels so constructed and empty. And they want emotions from the audience? For real. Thanks, but no thanks. Stay far, far away from this one.
Speaking of failure, let me elabborate a bit on the plot and story now and pointg out why I felt this was a horrible movie. The key criticism is one I have for many of these films, namely that it does all, especially atg the end, to please the audience and on the way there come extremely short in terms of realism, depth and significance. Almost everything here rings false in terms of how it feels unauthentic and for the sake of it. And what makes this especially bad is that this is a film that wants to do nothing except go for realism in telling the story of a woman who leaves a big law firm to help simple people. I mean take one character's suicide, take the widow storming into the office although she should not have been able to. Take the money struggles resulting from Brambach's character's behavior. Take the latter's tragic family background. (Honestly I would have liked the plot twist that he killed his unfaithful wife and her loved back then, but never gonna happen.) Take the really cringeworthy scene in which Brambach's character hires her. Take the courts ruling in our beloved character's favor. Take the idea that a super rich insurer loses a six-figure case against a lawyer who has never worked on a case on her own. Take that said lawyer is far from being somebody who has a winning personality, but is rather shy. Take the scene when they speak bad about her and not only does she hear it, but the exact same second, somebody calls her name, sothe bullies realize what they did and that she is there. Take her (former) colleague's change of mind in the end when she supports the protagonist. In reality, she never would have met the protagonist again after the latter quit. Take Reents' really poor acting moment when she realizes that almost all the money is gone. I cringed when she screamed. Take the equally bad reaction from another female central character, well key supporting character, when she finds out that the insurer will not accept legal defeat and simply move on to the next court. How unexpected. There is honestly so, so much wrong with this film that I could write another three paragraphs about that, but i guess you kkinda get the message already by all these things I just mentioned. It is this poor yes. Also the reference towards the end when the likable victims are ready to surrender because the sick husband can no longer deal with the stress. So out of nowhere, again that much pseudo drama. So yeah, what do we have here? The antagonist is a ruthless male who is no longer a friend anymore in the end, but would have liked to be because our ginger lawyer is so smart and amazing and maybe even hot. Nah. The second male is one who loses all his moeny in strip clubs. And number three is one who is so weak and struggles with his health that he may keep super lawyer from winning her case. Nothing new here at all. ARD movies since the early 2000s are almost always anti-male because they are mostly made for female audiences. I applaud every single female who is smart enough to not fall for this scame. The females here of course are great, be it the wife of the ailing man, be it the colleague who, as I wrote earlier, in the end joins super lawyer or be it super lawyer herself. The moment when she is asked by the folks why she is talking to them and that she is not allowed to and she responds somethhing like she does not care about that now was another extremely poorly acted scene from Reents. There's a lot more. poorly acted? Check. Poorly written? Check. Poor execution all along? Super check! The bad news is that this film here was presented in a way where it could even result into several sequels. I hope not. They must not burn our GEZ money any further. What I also found embarrassing is that they say this is based on an actual character. With a different name though and said real life person (Beatrix, not Sandra, Hüller) gets to play a judge in this film very briefly. If I was her, then I totally would have refused to be a part of this mess, but seems like with the different names, ARD already managed to be on the safe side that there could not be any legal consequences. Genuinely, could there be anything worse than a garbage film like this one being made about your life? Massive thumbs-down from every perspective. Highly not recommended and the worst of it all is really the oh so happy ending and how everything linked to it, especially the last 20 minutes with all the pseudo drama leading up there, feels so constructed and empty. And they want emotions from the audience? For real. Thanks, but no thanks. Stay far, far away from this one.
