Frau Müller muss weg! (2015) User Reviews

Lesson in teaching

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 22 June 2015]

If a couple of parents gang up together to get rid of a teacher who "obviously" is bad for their kids ... does the teacher in question even have a fighting chance? This movie will answer that ... at least for this particular case. But it's not only parents versus teacher, it's also parents against each other.

It also depicts a couple of issues parents and teachers have to deal with in our society at this point. Maybe it'd be a touch better if it focused on that. And "Carnage" (also a theatre play like this one) is far better, though it concentrates only on parents, but some issues are the same here. The acting is nice and the story moves along nicely, especially if you consider the "restrictions" it has to deal with

Mrs. Müller needs to go!... or does she?

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 10 February 2015]

This is the newest movie by one of Germany's most famous directors these days: Sönke Wortmann. If you have a bit of an interest in German cinema, you have certainly heard of or even seen "Das Wunder von Bern" and "Der bewegte Mann". The script is based on a theater play and comes from a trio of writers, two of whom are fairly new to the wonderful world of movies. It's obvious that it comes actually from the theater as the cast is fairly small, and there are not really many different locations included.

It is about several parents who come to a parent-teacher conference with the intention to get rid of Mrs. Müller as their children's grades have been steadily dropping and the atmosphere in the class is not good either. The female parents are played by Mina Tander (looked like Knightley without her glasses), Alwara Höfels (very positive surprise maybe because her character is pretty likable, don't like her usually) and Anke Engelke (German top comedienne for a long long time). The males are played by Justus von Dohnáhnyi and Ken Duken. It becomes obvious quickly that the former is the far superior actor from these two. Gabriela Maria Schmeide plays the teacher, but she has not so many scenes. She does a solid job when she is on screen though. You may have seen her in her work with Doris Dörrie. I liked how that coffee machine somehow stood for the relationship between Höfels' and JvD's characters. It's not working at all. He tries to fix it. Then it's working, but in the end it's all just chaotic and a huge mess is the result.

It's a nice character study about all the parents in the film and the ending is very funny too, although I saw it coming kinda. But it really exposes all the parents. Admittedly they had it coming. It's also funny how the school seems to turn the parents into kids again themselves. The fight scene, the boob flash scene and there are many more examples. They aren't better than their offspring. Not at all. I personally felt there was no true greatness about these roughly 90 minutes, but it's a fairly entertaining film with hardly no weaknesses. Maybe Mrs. Müller's change in attitude when she returns did not really convince me, but that's pretty much it. I did like the blackboard moving scene at the very end. Nicely done. Recommended.

Ding dong, the bitch has won

[Karl Self · 22 December 2014]

Few places are more desolate than an elementary school on a Saturday. There, a group of parents meet the teacher of their children. SHE thinks they want to discuss their children's progress. THEY are set on having her fired. They are worried that their children might not make it to university otherwise, and they have all the other parents on their side. When the jolly, pudgy, middle-aged Miss Müller saunters into the room three minutes late, it looks like it's going to be a swift execution. But it turns out to be a long, drawn-out massacre, and mostly between the parents themselves.

The movie is based on a theatre play staged by the famous Grips theatre in Berlin; both the play and the movie were directed by Sönke Wortmann. He manages not to overegg the pudding and lets his cast shine. I particularly enjoyed the performances of Gabriela Schmeide (known from Doris Dörrie's Die Friseuse) as Miss Müller, and Justus von Dohnányi as a mettlesome father. On the other hand, the use of locations is pretty static and betrays the origins of the movie as a theatre play, but I was OK with that.

I really enjoyed this poignant comedy. You will enjoy the many little digs all the more if you work as a teacher, or if you have children in school