Horst in Translation ([email protected])
"Moppel-Ich" is a novel by Susanne Fröhlich and like many literary works that turn out fairly successful, they get made into a film at some point. Here we have the cinematic version of the book. The director is Thomas Nennstiel and the writer is Lars Albaum. For both of them it is a contender for their most known work, probably because of the base material. The cast includes a couple famous names, such as lead actress Christine Neubauer. The love interests Henning Baum and Gregor Törzs will also be known to German film buffs and I also recognized Steffi Kühnert and Gottfried Vollmer. Comedian Ingolf Lück had a one-scene performance. This is a television production from 2007 and next year it will have its 10th anniversary. You could probably write a 10.000-word review on everything that is wrong with this film mentioning almost every single scene. I will not do that now. But I will say that you can think of any negative word to describe a film and it will fit several scenes. Uncreative. Unrealistic. Schmaltzy. Embarrassing. Cringeworthy. It all fits.An well, what can be said about Christine Neubauer. I am not sure if she still gets cast in lead roles, but this film here is the perfect example of how she should not be in films at all. It is tough to find an actress with a more wooden line delivery than her. She plays the same character in every film she is in. She has absolutely no range, no matter if we are talking about her approach to comedy or to drama. And she makes a mediocre actor like Henning Baum look like Ralph Fiennes. Is there anything that can be said in her favor? I am not sure. Maybe you could say that it is casting directors, awards bodies and audiences who turn people into stars and if these did a proper job, then she would work in an office today probably and be far far away from the entertainment industry.But as bad as Neubauer may be, the script is at least equally disastrous. The film is packed from start to finish with pretentious quotes. I am talking about stuff on a level that nobody is speaking about, like the NASA reference at the end if you want one example. In a realistic film a police officer tells a woman that she cannot go through here. In this film, she realizes the woman's voice and takes her on her motorbike to where she wants to get. The official at the airport also recognizes her of course. And all this with the main character's worries about people knowing who she is. Hey who cares if her sister's son knows. And what happened at the end? The stewardess did not recognize her? Oh my God! Of course, she doesn't That's the only way they could get in the phone reference with her final words to Baum's character.What is the perfect sign of an unrealistic movie? That's right: I am referring to a highly unrealistic ending that sacrifices all kinds of realism for happy endings. And this one takes it to the next level with the brief epilogue. Sure he got personal trainer for Angela Merkel. It says a lot when a film is still at its best in these highly unrealistic moments, because the realistic parts are so bad, so cringeworthy and so unauthentic that you cannot eat as much as you want to vomit. Every film student should see this. Why? Because they know what they don't want to become. It makes me sad that a film like this actually gets decent ratings when aired on television. How desperate can some people be in their attempts to find love or lose weight if they consider these 1.5 hours an artistic achievement. A very sad state of affairs. I am not really sure if Fröhlich's book is as bad as this film, but I hope not. Maybe it is just "unfilmable", even if my personal guess is that the lack of talent everywhere is the only reason why this became such a huge failure. A definite contender for worst film of the 21st century so far.
