"Hannas Entscheidung" is a German televvision film from 2012, spring 2012 actually, so not too long anymore until this one has its 10th anniversary, just slightly over a year. The language is also mostly German here, but the film itself was made in Austria. Director Friedemann Fromm (love the name!) and writer Benedikt Roeskau have been active in the industry for decades already, also for over/almost 20 years back in 2012 when this came out, so you can certainly say that they are both pretty experienced. Their bodies of work are alright I suppose. I've seen way worse from other small screen filmmakers on many occasions. Not that I am realy impressed by their bodies of work either. But at least Fromm needs to be respected here for directing a somewhat tolerable performance out of Neubauer here because she is almost always absolutely horrible and sinks every movie she is in, especially if the plays the central character, which she does here as well. I am still not sure what her character's decision here is exactly. There is not one decision that really stands out compared to the others and definitely not one crucial enough for the film being named after it. Maybe it is that Hanna in the end decided to leave her husband, but it's not too important either. The movie runs for 1.5 hours by the way, just like the vast majority of other small screen releases. A few words on the cast now: I already mentioned Neubauer and what I think of her. I would say that in this film it was the much more talented male actors that somehow pulled her through in these scenes with her. I am mostly talking about Edgar Selge, about whom I am also not always sure if he is a good actor, but he was good enough here. August Schmölzer also deserves a mention. he is the main antagonist here and he played his part well as always. It's kinda impressive to see the names of the films he has been a part of already. Some really big players there. Thumbs-up for him. He should be much more famous than he actually is. And finally, one of the younger actors here is Sebastian Bezzel, although not that young either. He was also 40 already when this got made, but he always looks younger to me. Kinda surprise to see he is almost 50 now already. There is always some youthful charm to his characters, even if they are really similar, and I quite like his crime comedy films. Those are very entertaining and lots of fun in my opinion. So it made me a bit sad to see him wasted in this film here. He had almost no screen time at all and when he did, then his character had almost no impact on the story at all. So much for the cast. There are other very established actors like Morzé or Samarovski, but I don#t really wnat to go into detail about those now too much. You can always check out their bodies of work if you care.
Instead, let's talk a bit about this film we have here and some specific scenes and plot inclusions. This was linked closely to World War II because the protagonist's husband returns from war and brings a lot of trouble. The real trouble about this film, however, is once again Neubauer and how her character is written like a struggling saint with the heart in the right place, so basically the way her characters are always written and it is so cringeworthy enough. Also, even if she was not as terrible here as she is in every other movie, she was also far from good enough to play the lead here, especially with the emotional impact to her character. She could not pull it off and never will be good enough to do so. Maybe you can really applaud the director (as I already did) and writer here because the latter's screenplay was good enough that Neubauer's shortcomings did not feel too obvious. However, she also has the "talent" to make the most simple scenes come off as cringeworthy. This already applies to the very first scene when she does nothing but run. Her random smile (almost a laugh) in this scene was hard to stomach and also made no sense. Maybe the actress was just happy to have scored another lead role in a film that is way above her. There's again those moments when she is full of herself and shouldn't be, like the idea how she gets attacked by her husband and how she has to act scared. Or how we have another character say that she is a better carpenter than her husband already. Or how she has to take that test, mathemtics or something, at the cupboard and fails and next we get a sexist speech from one of the professors. Or there always needs to be some kind of sexual impact to Neubauer movies. The good news is we do not have five younger men being interested in her romantically this time as it happened before in other films, but completely without that component they could not get through it seems as we see during the scene when her and her husband get physical for the first time after his return. Also I am not surprised at all what they included in the script here for her husband's libido. This is exactly what I expected from a Neubauer movie. The men are not man enough for her. As for the overall quality, I already made my point. Neubauer is not good, but also not as horrible as I am used to perceive her, but it was mostly the actors that she shared the screen with that made this film watchable at times. You heard the names. One thing I definitely could have done without here were those skull findings. That was definitely too much. Of course, our incomparable heroine uses these to (try to) expose the Nazi crimes from the mayor or the town, who treated her unfairly anyway, so he must be rotten. Of course he is. Let's not think small, let's make him a cold-blooded killer. This got really pathetic though when they randomly throw in a killing by Selge's character, which was self-defence though. Of course it was when Hanna says so. And as her husband would not manage to survive a lengthy criminal prosecution and trial, she has to accept a compromise when dealing with the bad guy. So she still protects her man despite what he did to her. But then again, he is also just a victim of what he went through while being a prisoner of war. Somehow I expected a story here where Neubauer's character would get together with a new man, but then the previous man shows up. I mean, after all this is Degeto AND Regina Ziegler, so the two worst companies from the German televison landscape combined, but luckily the writer picked a more realistic route here and also in a typical Degeto movie, Schmölzer's character would have been arrested in the end or forced to flee whatever, but the actual outcome witout 100% justice felt much more authentic here. This is also a key reason why I give two stars out of five and not two stars out of ten. The script is really alright at times and makes it easy to not pay too much attention to the weaker moments like the fire in the end that feels for the sake of it or how Hanna reacts to her husband's decision that she must never return and also must sacrifice her son and also that her daughter must not return to see her father. Although we do not know if this decision is final. But Selge's character seemed very determine to pull through with it all. So yeah, I think this could have been a way worse film with Selge's character for example accepting his wife's talent and the two working together as equals. I actually like it that the film did not focus too much on the concept of emancipation here. It succeeds from other perspectives. Not enough for a postive recommendation though, even if the exact ending and last shot were alright too. I think that maybe with a more talented lead actress I could have given a thumbs-up here even. But I have no words for the awards recognition for Neubauer here at all, especially from Asian bodies. What were they thinking honestly? Finally, sets and costumes are not bad, bust also nnot really great. I think they could have done better in that department given the background. Alright, that's it. Watch something else instead I say.
Instead, let's talk a bit about this film we have here and some specific scenes and plot inclusions. This was linked closely to World War II because the protagonist's husband returns from war and brings a lot of trouble. The real trouble about this film, however, is once again Neubauer and how her character is written like a struggling saint with the heart in the right place, so basically the way her characters are always written and it is so cringeworthy enough. Also, even if she was not as terrible here as she is in every other movie, she was also far from good enough to play the lead here, especially with the emotional impact to her character. She could not pull it off and never will be good enough to do so. Maybe you can really applaud the director (as I already did) and writer here because the latter's screenplay was good enough that Neubauer's shortcomings did not feel too obvious. However, she also has the "talent" to make the most simple scenes come off as cringeworthy. This already applies to the very first scene when she does nothing but run. Her random smile (almost a laugh) in this scene was hard to stomach and also made no sense. Maybe the actress was just happy to have scored another lead role in a film that is way above her. There's again those moments when she is full of herself and shouldn't be, like the idea how she gets attacked by her husband and how she has to act scared. Or how we have another character say that she is a better carpenter than her husband already. Or how she has to take that test, mathemtics or something, at the cupboard and fails and next we get a sexist speech from one of the professors. Or there always needs to be some kind of sexual impact to Neubauer movies. The good news is we do not have five younger men being interested in her romantically this time as it happened before in other films, but completely without that component they could not get through it seems as we see during the scene when her and her husband get physical for the first time after his return. Also I am not surprised at all what they included in the script here for her husband's libido. This is exactly what I expected from a Neubauer movie. The men are not man enough for her. As for the overall quality, I already made my point. Neubauer is not good, but also not as horrible as I am used to perceive her, but it was mostly the actors that she shared the screen with that made this film watchable at times. You heard the names. One thing I definitely could have done without here were those skull findings. That was definitely too much. Of course, our incomparable heroine uses these to (try to) expose the Nazi crimes from the mayor or the town, who treated her unfairly anyway, so he must be rotten. Of course he is. Let's not think small, let's make him a cold-blooded killer. This got really pathetic though when they randomly throw in a killing by Selge's character, which was self-defence though. Of course it was when Hanna says so. And as her husband would not manage to survive a lengthy criminal prosecution and trial, she has to accept a compromise when dealing with the bad guy. So she still protects her man despite what he did to her. But then again, he is also just a victim of what he went through while being a prisoner of war. Somehow I expected a story here where Neubauer's character would get together with a new man, but then the previous man shows up. I mean, after all this is Degeto AND Regina Ziegler, so the two worst companies from the German televison landscape combined, but luckily the writer picked a more realistic route here and also in a typical Degeto movie, Schmölzer's character would have been arrested in the end or forced to flee whatever, but the actual outcome witout 100% justice felt much more authentic here. This is also a key reason why I give two stars out of five and not two stars out of ten. The script is really alright at times and makes it easy to not pay too much attention to the weaker moments like the fire in the end that feels for the sake of it or how Hanna reacts to her husband's decision that she must never return and also must sacrifice her son and also that her daughter must not return to see her father. Although we do not know if this decision is final. But Selge's character seemed very determine to pull through with it all. So yeah, I think this could have been a way worse film with Selge's character for example accepting his wife's talent and the two working together as equals. I actually like it that the film did not focus too much on the concept of emancipation here. It succeeds from other perspectives. Not enough for a postive recommendation though, even if the exact ending and last shot were alright too. I think that maybe with a more talented lead actress I could have given a thumbs-up here even. But I have no words for the awards recognition for Neubauer here at all, especially from Asian bodies. What were they thinking honestly? Finally, sets and costumes are not bad, bust also nnot really great. I think they could have done better in that department given the background. Alright, that's it. Watch something else instead I say.
