Sag mir nichts (2016 TV Movie) User Reviews

Entertaining for sure, but also not that realistic

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 28 March 2019]

"Sag mir nichts" or "Do not Tell me" is a German small screen family drama from 2016, so neither a new nor old film, and like most other television releases here in Germany it runs for 1.5 hours exactly pretty much. The director is Andreas Kleinert, a pretty experienced and prolific filmmaker and I liked some of the other stuff from him taht I have seen. The writer is Norbert Baumgarten and he is not as experienced, which occasionally showed. The two lead actors here are Ronald Zehrfeld and Ursina Lardi, both very experienced and longtime successful and the latter is not the only Swiss actress in this one. Wiesnekker who plays her man is also from Switzerland and just like Zehrfeld's significant other Hostettler, he is doing a fine job. Most of time I would say. Here and there, we get a weaker acting moment too, but these are not as frequent as the struuggles in writing. I would say that the middle part felt extremely forgettable. The beginning is strong and towards the end the film gets better too, so you can say everytime something happens and the film is more in terms of progress than a mere character study, it is worth watching. But when it is not more, then it is fairly forgettable sadly. Let me also elaborate a bit on these unrealistic moments and scenes I mentioned in the title of my review. One would be that one couple's daughter has her (unvoluntary) coming-out the same time her mother cheats. Another would be that the cheating couple meet a former colleague of the man during dinner and not just that, also that he is another cheater. At the end, that the cheating man's woman actually does get pregnant after initially just pretending she was expecting a baby. All of that felt slightly too much for realistic dramatic purpose I would say. But in the face of the film's stronger moments and solid take on atmosphere, I will forgive them for some of the flaws. It is still a movie that has more positive than negatives aspects and production values to it. I also really liked the final shot with her sitting alone in the restaurant and him standing outside with tears in his eyes saying farewell, a bit of a surprising turn as it seemed on other occasions that he is the one who wants her more, but what a difference a pregnancy makes I guess. As for the man who is cheated on, there was an interesting scene early on when he resists the compliments and approach by a much younger attractive woman. A bit ironic he resisted after what his wife did just briefly before that and of course I know that he didn't know. Nice to see Lea von Acken too, even if her story line here was really not good, a baity revelation about her, but nothing is elaborated proper on and she is basically done away with in the most forgettable manner with some unrequited love revelation. That should be all now. It's an okay movie, no greatness or just very rarely, but also not a weak film by any means. Looking at all the weaker television stuff from Germany here, this is definitely above-average. Go see it if you like the actors. It's worth it.