Waedliman Reviews

Wunderschön (2022)

Dreary and pretentious

[4/10 · 16 May 2024]

German film and me (also German) - it's never going to be a great love affair, especially when it's a comedy. The same stories have been told over and over again for at least 30 years. They take place either in Munich or Berlin, you live in huge old apartments and have problems that you would only smile about in real life. These problems are played up as if it were a matter of life and death, with dialog that is completely unrealistic and situations that want to be slapstick but are usually badly written to make you laugh. "Wunderschön" is a movie in which no one is likeable and nothing is important or credible. Even good actors (Gedeck, Król) perform badly and the fact that Karoline Herfurth won the Lubitsch Award is an insult to the grand master of humor. If you don't know how to write good comedies, take a look at the ancient Greeks. They knew their craft, but German screenwriters don't.

Them (2021– )

From good to stupid

[4/10 · 15 May 2024]

The first three episodes of the first season of this series show what it might have been like to move into a white neighborhood as a black middle-class couple in an exaggerated but uncomfortably believable way. And as if the scriptwriter had run out of breath, everything suddenly goes downhill from there. Characters are not thought through to the end or suddenly take on a paranormal life of their own, there is the inevitable and completely exaggerated violence that is unfortunately typical of such series and in the end the question remains as to what it's all about after the last few episodes are a jumble of genres, scraps of thought and nonsense. I almost fell asleep at the end, that's how boring the whole thing was and after the first episode of season 2 at the latest, I decided to stop. A good initial idea is literally sunk here.

To Catch a Killer (2023)

Neither fish nor fowl

[5/10 · 13 May 2024]

It's always nice that even I, as a non-US citizen, recognize that there are Canadians among the cast, whether a film is set somewhere in the USA or not. I just hear it and then wonder if there might be a connection. But I should stop doing that. Just like looking for logic in thrillers, because it's usually not there. It's the same here. Everything we see could be exciting, but it only is to a limited extent. One reason for this is that this movie is once again too long. After quite exciting scenes, you just sit around and talk. Shailene Woodley in the leading role is always the same. She has a rather sparse acting repertoire, in her roles she is the fragile tough one, but I don't see what happens to this character. It's the same here. Everything remains vague and even the killer ends up being an uninteresting peripheral phenomenon in a movie that doesn't know what it wants to be. It's definitely not exciting, and it's only exciting to a limited extent. A missed opportunity.

The Attack (2012)

A film with dubious intentions

[2/10 · 19 April 2024]

Watching the movie after the horrific massacre of Israelis by Hamas and the subsequent invasion of Gaza does not change my basic attitude towards the situation in the Middle East. However, the film makes the whole ambivalence of the topic clear and leaves me with a few questions that I don't want to ask here, but with which I am not really satisfied. The motive for the suicide bombing is not clearly worked out for me and remains a vague motive. The interesting constellation of the first 40 minutes or so unfortunately turns into a tough affair in the second half of the film as the pace is slowed down and the search for motivation and justification for the assassination attempt takes on an aftertaste that I don't like at all and which I also consider dangerous. Ultimately, the film can certainly be accused of legitimizing the assassination attempt in question, if you only understand the people who do such things. But that falls far too short, because it only briefly touches on the historical and current contexts and unfortunately doesn't put them into context enough.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Cooper and Lawrence as a dream team

[8/10 · 19 April 2024]

A story about people suffering from mental disorders can often be bitter. There are plenty of examples of this and sometimes they are a torture because they do not accurately portray illnesses or feast on the suffering of their characters. Silver Linings doesn't do that. On the contrary. Here we are presented with characters that we have to accept as they are, with all their quirks and demons that they have to deal with every day. And when you have two actors as good as Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, who also seem to have good personal chemistry, there's hardly anything that can go wrong. I only wish that some of the dialogues had been shortened a little, as they sometimes dragged on a bit. The humor that runs through the entire film, which always finds a new commentary in Robert De Niro's wonderful facial expressions, is never offensive, but always creates a refreshing distance to this amusing dissection table, on which people like you and me find themselves who simply don't know what to do with themselves. We accompany this journey for a while and are probably delighted with the result at the end. And I can't get enough of Cooper and Lawrence's flair for comedy. It's a good thing they met again in American Hustle. Their acting style is a perfect match.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Maybe overrated

[7/10 · 4 April 2024]

Auschwitz commandant Höss lives with his wife and children next to the concentration camp in a kind of postcard idyll, which makes the viewer wonder how much repression a person is actually capable of. The latest gossip is exchanged at the coffee table, items of clothing from deported Jews are picked out, the children play with the teeth of murdered people. The normality of this situation is occasionally broken in very brief moments by director Glazer in the play of his actors, but the world in which the family lives does not seem at all unusual in Nazi Germany. After the first 30 minutes or so, I was disgusted enough by these people that I waited for a story to develop. But unfortunately nothing happened. As much as I got involved in the saturation of colors and images by cinematographer Lukasz Zal and especially the all-dominant sound, I gradually lost interest, because I had the impression that I had understood everything after half of the film at the latest. And nothing really happened in the hour that followed. The director can certainly be blamed for this and despite the truly outstanding production value of all those involved, the Oscar for best international film seemed a little excessive. Another Sandra Hüller film was much better for me: Anatomy Of A Fall.

Yosi, the Regretful Spy (2022–2023)

Too slow

[5/10 · 28 March 2024]

I don't care if a historical event is used for a fictional series, because I either do my own research to find out what is true and what is not, or I simply don't care and watch what the series has to offer. Unfortunately, the promising approach is not really successful here, because episode after episode is devoid of suspense and pace, time jumps are constructed that you have to follow and don't really seem to make sense. Why can't the story be told in a linear fashion? In addition, I can't get much out of the main character either, he is too reduced in the game for me and I don't discover many rough edges. It's clear that he's supposed to be instantly likeable, but that seems a little too manipulative for me and, especially in view of the fact that I was bored, I was done after episode 5.

Road House (2024)

One word: crap

[2/10 · 28 March 2024]

As this movie is released in Germany from the age of 18, it will hardly be suitable for children. For adults, on the other hand, it is clearly too stupid, too badly acted and written. So who is the target audience for such nonsense, in which a talented actor, a couple of moderately talented actors and a talentless actor have to pretend for two hours that they are in a comedy in which the constant use of violence is merely for the entertainment of a borderline-obnoxious audience? I don't want to offend anyone, but who gives this piece of work more than 5 stars? And even if the discussion whether crocodile or alligator is ultimately irrelevant, perhaps we should think about what level we've sunk to when a promising director makes such filth and an actor like Gyllenhaal gives himself over to it? The only pleasant thing about this trash was Gyllenhaal's body. Yummy. The rest - unappetizing.

All of Us Strangers (2023)

Great acting, lacks depth in script

[7/10 · 25 March 2024]

A day after watching the movie, I'm still trying to get more clarity on some things. That's a good sign. But I'm not really succeeding, because I realize that my first impression wasn't wrong: The movie has outstanding actors, Adam is someone I would immediately take under my wing and comfort 24 hours a day. Nevertheless, the dialog could be more compelling, some of the lengths could be taken out to make the rather tightly constructed story even tighter and one or two of the situations Adam gets himself into perhaps need more clarity. In addition, I don't like soundtracks where well-known songs are played to explain the plot. I would have preferred the director to work exclusively with original music. There are a few illogical points in the script that could easily have been removed, such as the question of why the family home has no inhabitants when Harry visits and whether the first meeting with Harry actually takes place or not. The result is a good movie that is carried by its actors, but it is not as outstanding as some would like it to be. 7.5.

Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

Absolutely funny

[9/10 · 21 March 2024]

When you watch this film in 2024, which is already 25 years old, you realise that not that much has actually changed. A conservative opinion is still behind the absurdities of such pageants, is still as stupid as many of the protagonists of this film and lives in a bubble somewhere in the provinces where there are no other highlights than the change from winter to summer time. Formally, however, the film is probably no longer feasible today. Here, everyone, including the disabled, is pulled through the cocoa with such relish that there would be angry waves of protest from woke groups, so that a new version that would do justice to left-wing opinions would probably be completely humourless. So let's enjoy this cheeky but never below the belt comedy, which boasts great dialogue and once again an outstanding Allison Janney. Situational comedy also works so I can only say that this is one last good example of successful comedies.

Hypnotic (2023)

A total mess

[2/10 · 19 March 2024]

Ben Affleck has done it again - make a bad film and prove that he can also be a miserable actor. How you manage to look like you've taken sleeping pills for 90 minutes and have no idea where you are is remarkable. But he must have read the script beforehand and should know that not everyone is a Christopher Nolan. And Robert Rodriguez definitely isn't, as this mishmash of well-known originals and a little too much violence clearly shows. The ladies in charge of the casting got it wrong in every respect, because there is simply no less chemistry than between Affleck and Alice Braga. Plus a crude story that is so confused that it's better not to worry about it. Ultimately, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong, so I can only recommend spending these 93 minutes on other things.

Red Oaks (2014–2017)

Just boring

[3/10 · 14 March 2024]

There are series where you know after just one episode that they're not going to be funny. Red Oaks is such a series. The fact that it's supposed to be set in the 80s is embarrassing. I was there, I know the era, there's no sign of it here. Then there's the dialogue, which is so bad that I sometimes get the feeling that it was written by stoned university students who don't know how to write clever texts. The actors aren't really likeable, the clichés aren't funny and so I have to ask myself why you should sit through the whole thing and be bored to death. Absolutely not funny or in any way interesting.

Mahmood (2022)

Meaningless and distant.

[4/10 · 7 March 2024]

When I make a documentary about a person, I have to have something to tell, an intention, a plan, what I ultimately want to communicate to the viewer. I don't blame Mahmood for saying little about himself and trying to express this through his songs, which, if you don't speak Italian, seem to have confused lyrics that don't necessarily make sense. Even after the documentary ended, I didn't get any closer to Mahmood as a person, as if the director was deliberately keeping him at a distance. So I can say for myself that the whole project has unfortunately failed. But I don't begrudge Mahmood his success and would have liked him to win the song contest.

Don't Ever Wipe Tears Without Gloves (2012)

Great on every level

[9/10 · 6 March 2024]

If there's one thing the Swedes are good at, it's making films that really get to you. This mini-series is one such example. The early days of AIDS in Stockholm are the subject, shown through a group of young gay men who lose their lives one by one. Their social stigmatisation by the church and relatives is also thematised; the cruelty of rejection towards people who are simply looking for support and love becomes a martyrdom that some can only escape by committing suicide. So much for the fiction and when I look back on my post-adolescence, which roughly coincides with this time, I can confirm that the mood, insecurities and despair have been excellently captured. You can't accuse director Simon Kaijser of going too heavy on the tear ducts here, because the fate of the young men won't leave anyone cold. And death is cruel in its mercilessness, that much is clear once again. The almost 3 hours flew by for me and I often found myself fighting back tears. For all gay men under 40 who have not lived through these times, the series should be made compulsory viewing. Maybe then they will be a bit more humble and less hedonistic.

Detachment (2011)

Philosophical and sociological reflections

[8/10 · 5 March 2024]

A substitute teacher comes to a problem school for a month and is confronted with social ills that should be overwhelming. Why does this teacher with the strange name Henry Barthes seem to be strong enough to face and overcome the daily challenges? However, in a kind of interview situation that sets the scene for the story, we quickly realise that this is not the case and that Barthes' own story is central to his actions. Detachment throws a depressing reality in your face that you first have to come to terms with yourself. Every viewer is probably inclined to give these pupils a thorough going over, at least that's how much they tantalise me. Insults, violence, cruelty to animals and even suicide are all addressed here and you shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that this is a story in search of realism. For me, the name of Adrien Brody's teacher refers to the French philosopher Roland Barthes, whose difficult childhood also lies like a shadow on Brody's character, which he plays excellently, by the way. You can see this film as a philosophical reflection, a sociological outline of the questionable future of a country, the hopelessness of existence or the daily pressure that children are exposed to today. But you can also just watch Adrien Brody as he succeeds in giving this character, who actually has no prospects, a fascination that goes straight to the heart.

Harrow (2018–2021)

Good choice to end this with season 3

[5/10 · 3 March 2024]

And once again, a series has no potential to last three seasons. After season 1, I was looking forward to season 2, but after the end of season 2 I was sceptical about the last one and I was right. It's absolute nonsense. The main plot doesn't move at all, the new deaths in each episode are neither interesting nor are they the centre of attention. Instead, there's a lot of talking, a lot of mystery and Ioan Gruffud - not an A-list actor anyway - overacts to such an extent that it reminds me of the bad days of television, when appearing in series was a kind of punishment. It was good to stop after 3 seasons.

Ferrari (2023)

Boring

[3/10 · 3 March 2024]

I admit that I'm not a fan of Adam Driver. For me, he's added another zero to his bad performance in House Of Gucci, because he's no better in Ferrari, where he plays another Italian. If he's not careful, he'll soon be following in the footsteps of Liam Neeson or Nicolas Cage, who are both experts in bad roles and bad films respectively. Apart from that, after 20 minutes of this film I had no idea where it was going, who the characters we are introduced to actually are and what kind of conflict is being played out here. Driver, who perhaps needs to have his roles explained to him better, also comes across as tired and listless. Maybe he just can't do it any better. The CGI tricks at the beginning, where he can be seen as a young driver, are so laughable that I wondered whether the budget for the entire film was over 1 million dollars.

Die Unberührbare (2000)

A thrilling tour de force

[9/10 · 28 February 2024]

I had the pleasure of doing an interview with the leading actress. I can still hear Hannelore Elsner's voice today and when I avoided questions about the movie, I got a few things out of her that she probably didn't tell everyone. I can really relate to her way of acting and believe that the role of Hanna Flanders had to be a gift for any actress who was able to portray the desperation of a woman who has to witness the world she has built for herself collapsing and in which she can no longer live. According to her, the sex scene with Wadim Glowna worked so credibly because they knew each other well beforehand and had never seen each other naked. You can literally feel how amused and at the same time shocked Elsner and Glowna were when they saw each other naked. This bears positive fruit for Röhler's masterpiece, whose sensitivity gives the actors enormous freedom and at the same time offers the viewer a tragedy that is unrelenting and leaves no one cold. If the film had been shot in English, Elsner would probably have received an Oscar nomination. When I told her that, she was thrilled that a young man like me recognized the value of this film. If you want to delve deeper into Germany's complicated post-war history, this movie is definitely a must-see.

Split (IX) (2016)

Slow and boring

[3/10 · 27 February 2024]

Shyamalan has made one good and one half-good movie. Both were a long time ago. Since then, he has struggled to find the right material, sometimes writing it himself, and then he expects us to put up with a whole series of nonsense, which he wraps up in pretty pictures, puts himself in front of the camera in small roles - Hitchcock sends his regards - and lets us take part in more or less half-baked stories that don't want to work. Split is one such example. Nothing is really right here. As a viewer, you constantly want to shake the three kidnapped girls yourself and ask when they will finally wake up from their passive apathy and McAvoy plays his characters to the edge of the bearable. Then there's the obligatory psychiatrist who thinks she has the inside track, and of course - unfortunately - the whole thing has to end in a horror show, which adds the finishing touch to the illogical story. No, for me this movie is a far too lengthy flop.

Lamb (2021)

Unsatisfying

[5/10 · 19 February 2024]

I had hardly any information about this movie when I watched it and therefore had no expectations. What was fulfilled were: Great scenery, good acting and an overall good camera. What annoyed me from the start was that I got to see less than I wanted to. And when the resolutions came, I was disappointed. My receptors don't seem to work the way the director thought they would and in the end I wasn't happy with the result either. Whether Lamb was horror or not didn't matter to me at all. I only had analogies to the Bible after seeing it, because I had too many questions that I was waiting to be answered and that didn't come. So the script can be described as weak, the trickery with the child a little too Disney and the two winners remain the Icelandic landscape and Noomi Rapace. Not much, is it?

Old Henry (2021)

Dull and violent.

[4/10 · 18 February 2024]

You can now interpret a lot into the movie or simply take it as it is: a chamber play with a lot of senseless violence, because nothing other than violence is the theme here, beautifully staged for all those who can't get enough of it. Apart from that, I haven't seen anything that makes this movie worth seeing - if at all - and I think that many people over-interpret it when they want to see something that isn't there. The body count is high and once again this cynical film confirms that the enthusiasm for violence in the land of unlimited possibilities alone seems to be enough for such a minimalist movie. And also for high ratings from the audience.

Auerhaus (2019)

Example of a boring film

[3/10 · 13 February 2024]

Some films want to come across as particularly relaxed and go to great lengths to maintain this tone. Even tragic events are then given less focus than the irrelevance of dialog or things that happen around them. Auerhaus does exactly that and still looks like a hard piece of work, which is unfortunately due to the actors, who all act as if they are just about to finish drama school. This is particularly evident in the original language, where the dialog has the typical artificiality of a German TV film. Hardly anything sounds natural, everything is scripted and is supposed to be the language of a youth from 40 years ago. I was young myself back then and believe me, nobody spoke like that. I don't believe the director at all, because what we see here is incomprehensible from the outset, be it visiting times in closed psychiatric wards or the fact that young people just move into a house and their parents don't care. To me, it all seems like an assertion that ignores reality.

Society of the Snow (2023)

Overrated

[6/10 · 6 February 2024]

I'm a bit surprised that this movie was nominated for an Oscar. It's good in terms of design, I don't think anyone doubts that. And even if the crash scene looks a bit contrived, it doesn't detract from the very well-rounded look. What bothers me is the fact that I didn't warm to the characters and asked myself the whole time why they were actually making such a movie if they had nothing new to say. And so over 2 hours drag on more or less tenaciously, monologuing about life, faith and the question of whether it is humane to become a cannibal. It's all very matter-of-fact, only the music adds a constant barrage of emotions, which also disturbed me a little. The merciless landscape is very well staged, the interaction between these young men rather less so.

The Teachers' Lounge (2023)

German neo-liberalism as a dead end

[9/10 · 31 January 2024]

I'm German and I can tell quite well that those who think the movie is a satire are completely wrong. No, dear ones, it's about the real madness of the German education system. And a fantastic movie at that.

Carla is a teacher at a high school and teaches the lower classes. There is a problem with petty theft and she decides to take matters into her own hands and catch the thief in the act after one of her pupils is wrongly suspected. So she sets a trap and films the crime. All that can be seen is a woman's blouse, but neither the person behind it nor the crime itself. But that is quite enough for Carla to accuse a secretary of the theft and now a spiral is set in motion from which there seems to be no escape. One can now speculate as to whether the film sketches a society that, out of fear of its own courage and still traumatized by the events of the Nazi era, is no longer able to see and address the obvious in a completely false understanding of personal sensitivities. In fact, no one in this story is sympathetic, not even most of the pupils. Carla, played excellently by Leonie Benesch, is one of those woke do-gooders who probably live alone in a nice three-room apartment in an old building, vote for the Green Party and believe that if you gender correctly, all is right with the world. But it is not. On the contrary. The son of the alleged perpetrator seems to be the only one who understands what life is really about. It is not for nothing that he is carried out of the school building on a throne by the police at the end. Carla's fate, however, is uncertain. She will probably make a similar mistake again at another school...

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

And what is your view on reality?

[10/10 · 28 January 2024]

First things first: if you're looking for a classic courtroom drama or a thriller, you won't find it here. Anyone who wants to be casually entertained will be disappointed. Those who want to think and like movies that are still present the next morning will appreciate "Anatomy...". The movie begins with an endless loop of a piece of music that may well get on your nerves, as it prevents a concrete introduction to the movie. This is intentional, of course, because as unusual as Sandra's reaction, the main female character, is to this noise that her husband is making, the introduction to the story, which unfolds very slowly in the first 30 minutes, is just as unusual. Soon the body of a man lies in front of the house in the French Alps, Sandra's husband, the almost blind son Daniel discovers it. A reconstruction of the supposed fall from a higher floor begins and the question arises as to whether this was an accident or whether Sandra murdered her husband. To cut a long story short: The truth does not come out, although I personally believe that the son deliberately makes false statements so as not to lose his mother. But we don't find out. The courtroom scenes are breathtaking. Not because there are any hysterical characters gasping for air, as in American cinema, but because director Triet uses a few tricks to put our powers of comprehension under the microscope. The movie is an intellectual masterpiece. It has various philosophical and psychological levels, not all of which can be grasped at first glance, but which have a lasting effect. This is mainly due to the actors, mainly Sandra Hüller as Sandra and the still young Milo Graner as her son Michel. It is interesting to see how the generally very introverted portrayal of all the characters is broken up by the public prosecutor, whose vain self-portrayal in Antoine Reinartz's film would most likely correspond to a classic Hollywood production. All the other actors are miles away from this, especially Hüller, whose performance is so nuanced that the woman, whom we cannot assess, is both sympathetic and unsympathetic. The flashback in the argument with her husband is so intense that I was holding my breath. And then there's the passage that everyone should pay close attention to, because it's the key to the movie. Marge, a court clerk who is supposed to make sure that no one influences Michel during the trial, falls into exactly this trap by giving Michel important clues that lead him to make a statement whose truthfulness no one can verify and which I extremely distrust. But it is what it is. No one in this movie reveals the truth; mother and son know it but don't reveal it. Is that unsatisfactory? Not at all, because everything about this movie made me absolutely happy.