"Wir sind die Rosinskis" (named after the German word for "raisin" and it is probably an appealing name for the easily entertained because of that, also sounds rather East German to me), which means "We are the Rosinskis/Rosinsky family" is a German television film from 2016, so this one is moving closer to its 5th anniversary now and like most other small screen releases here in my country, it runs fro 1.5 hours. There is something slightly special about the people who made this film. For director Gruschka, it was his very first effort as the man in charge as usually he works as an editor. Now writer Rotter has written many screenplays before, but not as many as he has films in his body of ork, in which he was part of the cast. Only co-writer Soisson worked in her most prolific field of profession here. As for the cast, if you take a look at the list, you will find several actresses from the Thalbach family, not just Katharina, who is the oldest and most famous. All in all, there are three different Thalbach generations involved here. I still find it pretty baffling, how similar they look to each other. I mean you can really say they are related and actually you can see so to an extent, where I found it difficult to believe that there are other characters in this movie who also belong to the (fictitious) Rosinski family because tehy looked so different. This includes Emma Bading most of all, a rising young actress here in Germany. But maybe that is just personal and subjective perception and struggles I had in this case. The cast is pretty spectacular, but then again this was shown during prime time on the biggest television channel, so no surprise. Other actors that you may recognize if you have seen many German films are of course Milan Peschel, but also Kida Khodr Ramadan and André Hennicke, who both don't have a lot of screen time unfortunately. Also there is a brief appearance by Michael Schweighöfer, Matthias' dad, and I guess this has to do with Peschel having acted in many films that the younger stars in. And also I want to mention Daniel Krauss, who plays the second biggest male character here, and every time I see him in something I am genuinely baffled by how much he looks like Tobey Maguire.
Anyway, not let us take a look at the story here. We have a family of likable chaots you could say, who struggle a lot and this includes most of all money and work, and sometimes they also have arguments with each other, but at the end, they still stick together every time. The mother loses her job finally because she took a piece of clothing or so. You shouldn't do that obviously, but this is overall a pretty light movie. Not entirely harmless though as we see how one character holds a gun to another's head and there is also something like a brawl and we see some wounds. Still most of the time, the film is about non-violent struggles. I must say that none of the key plots really made an impact on me or were very entertaining. Een grandma Thalbach's character's criminal career only makes for some solid laughs (or just smiles) in-between, but it is not really possible to take it seriously, which was necessary to appreciate the film as a whole. The comedy I did like here at times like when have one character say something like "Grandma is dead." and another character enters the room and hears it and then she corrects herself "No Grandma is dead to us.". In contrast to that, the film loses itself in weaker plots for every character basically. The man of the family being worried that his wife may still have feelings for her ex, who is in jail now, was as bad as the whole boxing plot idea and that she uses somebody as a punching ball if she may have feelings. Or near the end, the young son ending up in Berlin somehow in a sauna or so. So random. You can really say that all the male characters here are written really poorly and even if they want you to like Peschel's character and others too, let me add that it is sometimes even despicable and disgusting how they are depicted. They clearly don't want anybody to take away spotlight from the Thalbach's as they are all powerful women, even the young one, who is way tougher than her military boyfriend. And the Maguire look-alike is the best example too. Like how would he ever show up at the family's doorstep early on and not have his letter sent by the mail. Or how he is literally threatened by the brute guy who is a "business associate" from Katharina's character. So yes, at the latest there it gets very clear that almost nothing in this film would happen the same way in reality. It's not a failure or so luckily like so so many other German television films, but also not a convincing watch. Thanks though for reminding me of the fun song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Overall, I would not have been surprised if they made a sequel to this one here. Or actually will in teh future as it is not that old and the Thalbachs are all close enough to unite again and also show up for all kinds of other projects together, but I probably would have very little interest in seeing a second movie because this first one already gets a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.
Anyway, not let us take a look at the story here. We have a family of likable chaots you could say, who struggle a lot and this includes most of all money and work, and sometimes they also have arguments with each other, but at the end, they still stick together every time. The mother loses her job finally because she took a piece of clothing or so. You shouldn't do that obviously, but this is overall a pretty light movie. Not entirely harmless though as we see how one character holds a gun to another's head and there is also something like a brawl and we see some wounds. Still most of the time, the film is about non-violent struggles. I must say that none of the key plots really made an impact on me or were very entertaining. Een grandma Thalbach's character's criminal career only makes for some solid laughs (or just smiles) in-between, but it is not really possible to take it seriously, which was necessary to appreciate the film as a whole. The comedy I did like here at times like when have one character say something like "Grandma is dead." and another character enters the room and hears it and then she corrects herself "No Grandma is dead to us.". In contrast to that, the film loses itself in weaker plots for every character basically. The man of the family being worried that his wife may still have feelings for her ex, who is in jail now, was as bad as the whole boxing plot idea and that she uses somebody as a punching ball if she may have feelings. Or near the end, the young son ending up in Berlin somehow in a sauna or so. So random. You can really say that all the male characters here are written really poorly and even if they want you to like Peschel's character and others too, let me add that it is sometimes even despicable and disgusting how they are depicted. They clearly don't want anybody to take away spotlight from the Thalbach's as they are all powerful women, even the young one, who is way tougher than her military boyfriend. And the Maguire look-alike is the best example too. Like how would he ever show up at the family's doorstep early on and not have his letter sent by the mail. Or how he is literally threatened by the brute guy who is a "business associate" from Katharina's character. So yes, at the latest there it gets very clear that almost nothing in this film would happen the same way in reality. It's not a failure or so luckily like so so many other German television films, but also not a convincing watch. Thanks though for reminding me of the fun song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Overall, I would not have been surprised if they made a sequel to this one here. Or actually will in teh future as it is not that old and the Thalbachs are all close enough to unite again and also show up for all kinds of other projects together, but I probably would have very little interest in seeing a second movie because this first one already gets a thumbs-down from me. Not recommended.
