Apologies to fans of this movie, but I really, really disliked it. A successful, poetic-existential-symbolic-lushly photographed romantic drama thingie allegedly à la Kieslowski should not feature two unintentionally funny suicide attempt scenes. Plot holes of cavernous proportions, inconsistencies and cringe-worthy, cheesy, pretentious dialogue hit a peak during the last third of the movie. Since I mentioned Kieslowski, would someone please explain why this movie is compared with anything made by the late Polish master? It's like comparing rabbit pellets to chocolate drops.
The first 15 minutes may even trick you into believing you're watching something potentially good, despite an inclination towards the use of gimmicky visual tricks right from the beginning (though I did like the sequence of the letter going through various bits of machinery inside the post office). Franka Potente as asylum nurse Sissi is very aptly named indeed her character is a wet rag, a sissy. However, you first get a sense of just how dodgy this movie may truly become when about 20 minutes in, you're treated to Benno Fürmann kick-boxing in a vest for no apparent reason, which I assume was supposed to appeal to an abstract demographic of female viewers aged 13 to 21 (very dim 21-year-olds, may I add). The movie contains yet more clichés, cheese and affectedness with every passing scene. Unlikely coincidences masquerading as "fate" abound. Kieslowski it really is not! Cliché number one: the wounded hunk who won't let another woman near his heart anytime soon, because he still hasn't elaborated the tragic death of his wife (if this had been a period drama, she would have died in child-birth). This kind of male "hero" is clearly meant to appeal to the sacrifice-prone Florence Nightengale that allegedly inhabits every woman and funnily enough, the "heroine" here is literally a nurse, not to mention a masochist without a rational bone in her body. Cliché number two: The bank heist gone wrong. Oh, please. Cliché number three: the "colourful" assortment of loonies in the loony bin, uncomfortably reminiscent of another movie I abhor: The Million Dollar Hotel (why, Wim, why?!). All that was missing was a loony dwarf. In a moment of crisis, one of the loonies starts chewing glass because everyone's favourite nurse (you guessed it: Sissi!) isn't paying him enough attention. Another one of the loonies, who mysteriously has free access to the asylum's roof top at night, threatens to jump for the same reason, naturally forcing the selfless heroine to make a difficult choice. Cliché number four: a "shocking", "cathartic" (not!), faux-Thelma and Louise-type scene towards the end. Cliché number five (***SPOILER***): During the above-mentioned, botched bank heist, the "ugly" brother dies, the handsome one doesn't.
I can turn a blind eye to the odd plot hole, but there's a limit to everything. Example: Sissi is delegated to pick up a friend's inheritance from the bank. Naturally, before being handed a key to the safe containing said inheritance, Sissi would have had to fill in her personal details - name, address, the works. Straight after having opened the safe, Sissi participates in the above-mentioned bank heist, and is even caught on camera doing it. In normal circumstances, the police would have been on her doorstep within hours, since they had her address and all the evidence they needed. In the movie, Tykwer preferred to have the TV set playing in the asylum show a news report the following day, providing only vague information about her (approximate height, etc), because she was wanted for having taken part in the heist! I wonder if Tykwer thinks all police agents (not to mention ambulance drivers!) are required to ingest a handful of barbiturates with their morning breakfast.
Another example of Tykwerian script sloppiness: why should the audience accept that Bodo could do a tracheotomy without being offered any background on how he learnt to do one? The irony is that I was actually still enjoying the movie during and straight after the tracheotomy scene, feeling confident that we would be given a plausible background for what was happening sooner or later. The movie only took a downward trajectory for me from the infamous, kick-boxing-in-a-vest scene and what followed it: absolute nonsense that got worse with every passing scene. By the bank heist scene, I was mentally parodying everything I saw, unfortunately.
The "get out of the toilet" line and the tear duct defect that Bodo had may seem deep and poetic to some, but to me they were just elements ripe for parodying. "Get out of the toilet" wasn't deep, nor clever in an ironic, "it's meant to pretend it's deep but it's actually Tykwer winking at the audience in a post-modern kind of way." Maybe my sense of the ridiculous is too developed or just misplaced, but so much about this movie seemed unintentionally funny to me. It was also the very first time in my life that I wanted to shout "Put your clothes back on, you fool!" to a fit young man who was constantly required to run around in his birthday suit in melodramatic moments, or in revealing, "macho" attire. Like all the other characters, he was irritating, but aside from that he was also unintentionally comical. Oh, and let's be really honest: can Benno Fürmann actually act? At least with Franka Potente, I could see her undeniable charm, feminine yet androgynous, and her potential as an actress through that horrible, hickuppy performance that Tykwer got out of her!
Still, I think Tykwer might do well directing an episode of CSI or two. He's very good at doing the particle-swooshing-through-a-tight-internal-space kind of sequence you see in such TV series, when we're shown, say, a speck of a toxic substance travelling through the victim's lungs, or whatever.
The first 15 minutes may even trick you into believing you're watching something potentially good, despite an inclination towards the use of gimmicky visual tricks right from the beginning (though I did like the sequence of the letter going through various bits of machinery inside the post office). Franka Potente as asylum nurse Sissi is very aptly named indeed her character is a wet rag, a sissy. However, you first get a sense of just how dodgy this movie may truly become when about 20 minutes in, you're treated to Benno Fürmann kick-boxing in a vest for no apparent reason, which I assume was supposed to appeal to an abstract demographic of female viewers aged 13 to 21 (very dim 21-year-olds, may I add). The movie contains yet more clichés, cheese and affectedness with every passing scene. Unlikely coincidences masquerading as "fate" abound. Kieslowski it really is not! Cliché number one: the wounded hunk who won't let another woman near his heart anytime soon, because he still hasn't elaborated the tragic death of his wife (if this had been a period drama, she would have died in child-birth). This kind of male "hero" is clearly meant to appeal to the sacrifice-prone Florence Nightengale that allegedly inhabits every woman and funnily enough, the "heroine" here is literally a nurse, not to mention a masochist without a rational bone in her body. Cliché number two: The bank heist gone wrong. Oh, please. Cliché number three: the "colourful" assortment of loonies in the loony bin, uncomfortably reminiscent of another movie I abhor: The Million Dollar Hotel (why, Wim, why?!). All that was missing was a loony dwarf. In a moment of crisis, one of the loonies starts chewing glass because everyone's favourite nurse (you guessed it: Sissi!) isn't paying him enough attention. Another one of the loonies, who mysteriously has free access to the asylum's roof top at night, threatens to jump for the same reason, naturally forcing the selfless heroine to make a difficult choice. Cliché number four: a "shocking", "cathartic" (not!), faux-Thelma and Louise-type scene towards the end. Cliché number five (***SPOILER***): During the above-mentioned, botched bank heist, the "ugly" brother dies, the handsome one doesn't.
I can turn a blind eye to the odd plot hole, but there's a limit to everything. Example: Sissi is delegated to pick up a friend's inheritance from the bank. Naturally, before being handed a key to the safe containing said inheritance, Sissi would have had to fill in her personal details - name, address, the works. Straight after having opened the safe, Sissi participates in the above-mentioned bank heist, and is even caught on camera doing it. In normal circumstances, the police would have been on her doorstep within hours, since they had her address and all the evidence they needed. In the movie, Tykwer preferred to have the TV set playing in the asylum show a news report the following day, providing only vague information about her (approximate height, etc), because she was wanted for having taken part in the heist! I wonder if Tykwer thinks all police agents (not to mention ambulance drivers!) are required to ingest a handful of barbiturates with their morning breakfast.
Another example of Tykwerian script sloppiness: why should the audience accept that Bodo could do a tracheotomy without being offered any background on how he learnt to do one? The irony is that I was actually still enjoying the movie during and straight after the tracheotomy scene, feeling confident that we would be given a plausible background for what was happening sooner or later. The movie only took a downward trajectory for me from the infamous, kick-boxing-in-a-vest scene and what followed it: absolute nonsense that got worse with every passing scene. By the bank heist scene, I was mentally parodying everything I saw, unfortunately.
The "get out of the toilet" line and the tear duct defect that Bodo had may seem deep and poetic to some, but to me they were just elements ripe for parodying. "Get out of the toilet" wasn't deep, nor clever in an ironic, "it's meant to pretend it's deep but it's actually Tykwer winking at the audience in a post-modern kind of way." Maybe my sense of the ridiculous is too developed or just misplaced, but so much about this movie seemed unintentionally funny to me. It was also the very first time in my life that I wanted to shout "Put your clothes back on, you fool!" to a fit young man who was constantly required to run around in his birthday suit in melodramatic moments, or in revealing, "macho" attire. Like all the other characters, he was irritating, but aside from that he was also unintentionally comical. Oh, and let's be really honest: can Benno Fürmann actually act? At least with Franka Potente, I could see her undeniable charm, feminine yet androgynous, and her potential as an actress through that horrible, hickuppy performance that Tykwer got out of her!
Still, I think Tykwer might do well directing an episode of CSI or two. He's very good at doing the particle-swooshing-through-a-tight-internal-space kind of sequence you see in such TV series, when we're shown, say, a speck of a toxic substance travelling through the victim's lungs, or whatever.