Sex, Pity and Loneliness (2017) User Reviews

Entertaining most of the time, sometimes really bizarre

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 19 February 2019]

"Einsamkeit und Sex und Mitleid" or "Hummeln im Bauch" or "Sex, Pity and Loneliness" is a German mostly German-language movie from 2017, so still relatively new and I read that the title is a reference to the German national anthem and I must say I did not recognize that. Anyway, it runs for almost 2 hours, pretty long and this is the most recent work for director Lars Montag, who also adapted the novel by Helmut Krausser with Krausser himself. The movie scored a solid amount of awards recognition, including German Film Award nominations for actors Löbau and Bock. Well, the latter is not undeserving I would say as he probably gave the best performance from a pretty big cast. As for Löbau I could not agree more. She wasn't bad or anything, but it is clearly down to her role here and the sexual explicitness on several occasions, the nudity and of course the final scene with the toy when we hear everybody sing. Not a good choice for a nomination though. They could have picked at least 2 more deserving performers from the same film for the supporting nod. Like Kempter for example and I am not saying this because I like her physically and as an actress. Münster Tatort fans will appreciate her as well I assume. There's more known actors in here, not necessarily many where you will know the name immediately, but some that you will recognize from their physique and looks like it happens so many times with certain actors, also Americans. Now for this film in particular, it was a close call for me if I would give it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. It has its moments, some nicely performed and well-written, but others also memorable just for how bizarre they are like the sad man in blue color that becomes a piece of art or basically every single music moment like the Du/You cover turned into Ich/I with altered lyrics at the very end. The story lines of the individual characters are okay overall, nothing that really stands out, even if Stahlberg's character has some pretty solid entertainment potential at times, but yeah the development at the end with his connection (no more) to Kempter's character does not feel particularly right either. So it could have been written better on some occasions, even if it overall an okay screen play I would say and definitely nothing that really huts the film like many other screenplays seriously do. You can say that this is an episodic movie we have here. It is a bit of a trend that has come to Germany, even if these films are still relatively rare all in all. I remember Finsterworld for example that tells stories of several characters not belonging together and the connections they make with each other eventually. But I did not like FW. This one here is better. One of the better, probably not best German movies from 2017, most of the time it is uncompromising and bold, even if not all of it works out, but yeah, the people who made it are not outstanding talents, but good enough to have me give this movie a thumbs-up and positive recommendation as a whole. It also felt shorter than two hours, which is always a good sign, so I would not say they should cut some scenes or at least not too many. Go see it.

Oh, seriously?

[Waedliman · 3/10 · 5 July 2022]

Well, someone has tried to make proper art here and has failed miserably. What is supposed to be a comedy turns into a dreary bore. And although I'm a native German speaker, I find the dialog script just as stupid as the screenplay.