"Seitensprung" is a German television film from 2014, so this one is already over five years old, maybe over ten even depending on when you read this review. It runs the usual 1.5 hours, at least it did today, and the 80 minutes stated here are not correct I believe. The director is Sabine Boss from Switzerland and the writer is Verena Bird. Are these their real names? Oh well, Boss already has a fairly unusual body of work to be part of a project like this utterly generic German small screen release, but Bird surprises me even more as she has only worked on kids programs otherwise it seems. For small kids even. The word in the title means "cheating" by the way and this is also the center of the story. Or basically it happens already before the movie and all we see in here are the consequences, but I will get to that later. The cast is nothing special. Claudia Michelsen, who plays the most central character here, although you could debate if the one who palys her husband is lead too, is a fairly known German actress. Maybe Kampwirth is one that German film buffs will also recognize. Or Philippe Brenninkmeyer, but he only really has a very small part. Or Maren Kroymann of course, who has played the mother in so many of these movies and I still think she is a terrible actress and German audiences are overexposed when it comes to her. She is not funny, she has no range or versatility, nothing. And yet, she has one-person stage performances where apparently many people go and see her. The art of make-believe. I never would. That''s all I can say about the cast. But I see that almost to the day six years ago this was shown on ARD during prime time. Absolutely disgraceful. It's a terrible movie from every perspective with some equally horrible acting (or "acting") performance. Your GEz money at work, folks. Stand up. Luckily the writer has not been part of any new projects for almost five years now, hopefully it stays that way.
Now I will just elaborate a bit on the plot and story. It is nothing unusual that these ARD Degeto films are almost always anti-male, but of course discrimination only works in one direction there. Here, however, it is really ridiculous. The male protagonist cheated on his wife before the movie with a neighbor and now the neighbor is pregnant obviously. The rest of the film the guy needs to pay for his sin. His wife will not divorce him, but instead humiliates him constantly. But he, he fully deserves it for what he did and has no right to complain, right? Honestly, it would have been so nice if he had left her and that would have been an accurate and powerful statement, but like I said men in the ARD Degeto universe have only one purpose: Obey. This shows that these films are almost 100% directed at female audiences. Not only those that are Michelsen's age, but allso those that Kroymann is supposed to attract here. Don't even get me started when it comes to the film's shots at comedy, such as when the girl is caught drugged at school and we find out it was not the neighbor's joint she took, but her grandma's. Yep. And later on, grandma and protagonist are smoking one together. Sigh. How progressive, right? What else? Well, yeah also story-wise the film was absolute nonsense, like the idea that the neighbor simply moves in with them from now on (she does not even have a chance to say something about that lol) is utterly stupid. But Michelsen's character's word is the law here. Or how the neighbor keeps rambling on about what a powerful and visionary and courageous woman Michelsen's character is when talking to the father of her baby. There is also not even any discussion that he could leave his wife and be with the mother of his new child. As always with these films, the female protagonist is also successful with her work, mostly in a men's profession. There is more to that here. Somehow, there is a misunderstanding that she is the one pregnant and not the young neighbor and it stays that way and in the end she has to make a "powerful" speech that puts everything into perspective again and reality bites and she is even more likable than before. As for the supporting characters, I mentioned the young woman already on several occasions. Well, she is one of a kind too, seems dumb as rock honestly, but is seen as some kind of inspirations for the kids of the family. Okay. Would you want the woman your man cheated on and got pregnant hang out with your kids constantly? Please be reasonable. But yeah, it is also handled this way to show us that she is likable too. Everybody here is likable as long as it is a female character. The man bears all the guilt and he has to beg more for forgiveness than Henry on the Road to Canossa. What else? Aaaah yes the presentation that got the hole thing going hen mother steps in front of everybody and informs them about what the near future is gonna be like. Yeah well, like I said, the only thing that could have saved this horrible movie would have been the husband stepping up and at the latest when he was ordered to go to these physical birth preparation courses saying screw it I'm out. There are more conflicts of course too, like the mother-daughter conflict that is also failure of the highest order etc. Of course, back to the professional perspective, her boss also realizes that Fiona Platt (yep pretentious British name too for whatever reason) is absolutely essential and she is not only not fired, but gets a raise. No words for this abomination of a movie. No matter which perspective you take, it is always 100% failure. Not a single good, funny or meaningful moment in here from beginning to end. Absolutely horrible like I said in the title of my review. Skip at any cost.
Now I will just elaborate a bit on the plot and story. It is nothing unusual that these ARD Degeto films are almost always anti-male, but of course discrimination only works in one direction there. Here, however, it is really ridiculous. The male protagonist cheated on his wife before the movie with a neighbor and now the neighbor is pregnant obviously. The rest of the film the guy needs to pay for his sin. His wife will not divorce him, but instead humiliates him constantly. But he, he fully deserves it for what he did and has no right to complain, right? Honestly, it would have been so nice if he had left her and that would have been an accurate and powerful statement, but like I said men in the ARD Degeto universe have only one purpose: Obey. This shows that these films are almost 100% directed at female audiences. Not only those that are Michelsen's age, but allso those that Kroymann is supposed to attract here. Don't even get me started when it comes to the film's shots at comedy, such as when the girl is caught drugged at school and we find out it was not the neighbor's joint she took, but her grandma's. Yep. And later on, grandma and protagonist are smoking one together. Sigh. How progressive, right? What else? Well, yeah also story-wise the film was absolute nonsense, like the idea that the neighbor simply moves in with them from now on (she does not even have a chance to say something about that lol) is utterly stupid. But Michelsen's character's word is the law here. Or how the neighbor keeps rambling on about what a powerful and visionary and courageous woman Michelsen's character is when talking to the father of her baby. There is also not even any discussion that he could leave his wife and be with the mother of his new child. As always with these films, the female protagonist is also successful with her work, mostly in a men's profession. There is more to that here. Somehow, there is a misunderstanding that she is the one pregnant and not the young neighbor and it stays that way and in the end she has to make a "powerful" speech that puts everything into perspective again and reality bites and she is even more likable than before. As for the supporting characters, I mentioned the young woman already on several occasions. Well, she is one of a kind too, seems dumb as rock honestly, but is seen as some kind of inspirations for the kids of the family. Okay. Would you want the woman your man cheated on and got pregnant hang out with your kids constantly? Please be reasonable. But yeah, it is also handled this way to show us that she is likable too. Everybody here is likable as long as it is a female character. The man bears all the guilt and he has to beg more for forgiveness than Henry on the Road to Canossa. What else? Aaaah yes the presentation that got the hole thing going hen mother steps in front of everybody and informs them about what the near future is gonna be like. Yeah well, like I said, the only thing that could have saved this horrible movie would have been the husband stepping up and at the latest when he was ordered to go to these physical birth preparation courses saying screw it I'm out. There are more conflicts of course too, like the mother-daughter conflict that is also failure of the highest order etc. Of course, back to the professional perspective, her boss also realizes that Fiona Platt (yep pretentious British name too for whatever reason) is absolutely essential and she is not only not fired, but gets a raise. No words for this abomination of a movie. No matter which perspective you take, it is always 100% failure. Not a single good, funny or meaningful moment in here from beginning to end. Absolutely horrible like I said in the title of my review. Skip at any cost.
