#devid striesow

[scenesandscreens]

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Director - Edward Berger, Cinematography - James Friend

"What is a soldier without war?"

[rwpohl]

[bauerntanz]

Wann wird es endlich wieder wie es nie war

"Wann wird es endlich wieder wie es nie war" Ein Film von Sonja Heiss mit Devid Striesow, Laura Tonke, Arsseni Bultmann. Seit gestern in den #Kino-s.

Auf dem Gelände der größten psychiatrischen Klinik Schleswig-Holsteins aufzuwachsen ist irgendwie – anders. Für Joachim, den jüngsten Sohn von Direktor Meyerhoff (Devid Striesow), gehören die PatientInnen quasi zur Familie. Sie sind auch viel netter zu ihm als seine beiden älteren Brüder, die ihn in rasende Wutanfälle treiben. Seine Mutter (Laura Tonke) sehnt sich Aquarelle malend nach…

[enibas22]

IG audiblede - 7th July 2023

Wir nehmen euch mit in die Audible Studios mit Star-Lord und Rocket. Habt ihr euch #MarvelWastelanders mit Tom Wlaschiha und Devid Striesow schon angehört?

[jaucher]

[dweemeister]

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, Germany)

As a film buff, I retain a preference to reading a book first before seeing its adaptation. But with how many movies I see in a year – sometimes not realizing that a movie is a literary adaptation before starting it – and given how many original source materials are out-of-print or little-read (let alone how slow a reader I am), this is often too difficult a proposition. I make an attempt, however possible, to learn about the themes of an adapted book I was not able to read before heading into a film write-up. Strict fidelity to the text is not a requirement; yet a film adaptation should adhere to the spirit of the text. Any significant changes to that requires the change be done with artistic intelligence and sensitivity. Especially when the adapted book in question is significant in a peoples’ or a nation’s consciousness. Published in 1929, All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque is a landmark novel in anti-war literature and remains – for its depiction of World War I on the bodies and minds of the young men sent to fight it – an important part of modern Germany’s sociopolitical identity.

Lewis Milestone’s 1930 film adaptation at Universal with Lew Ayres was the first cinematic masterpiece following the introduction of synchronized sound and the era of the silent film. Now steps in Edward Berger’s German-language adaptation for Netflix, starring Felix Kammerer, in hopes of reminding viewers that Im Westen nichts Neues (roughly “Nothing New in the West”) is, despite its universal appeal, fundamentally a German story.  Berger’s All Quiet is a stupendous technical masterpiece – harrowing visual and sound effects, overflowing with blood and mud. It is among the most technically accomplished war movies this side of Saving Private Ryan (1998). Along the way, Berger’s All Quiet tries for too much, and betrays the characterizations and the intent of Remarque’s novel. With some of its violent scenes shot too aesthetically pleasing alongside an offensive and disrespectful electronic score, 2022’s All Quiet casts the French civilians and soldiers as “the enemy” rather than fellow victims. It veers perilously close to fetishizing the violence within.

Before a brief synopsis, it seems appropriate to reproduce Remarque’s epigraph to All Quiet on the Western Front here:

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.

It is 1917, and the Great War has been plodding along for three years. Along with his friends Ludwig Behm (Adrian Grünewald), Albert Kropp (Aaron Hilmer), and Franz Müller (Koritz Klaus), student Paul Bäumer (Kammerer) enlists in the Imperial German Army. They all receive uniforms that, unbeknownst to them, belonged to German soldiers killed in action. Skipping almost entirely over basic training, Paul and his friends deploy to the Western Front, on the French side of the Belgium/France border. There, they befriend Stanislaus “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch) and Tjaden Stackfleet (Edin Hasanovic), who are several years older and have been fighting since close to the war’s beginning. These young men muddle on in drenched trenches, freezing weather, and their comrades’ horrific deaths. Parallel to the plight of Paul and his fellow soldiers is German politician Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl), who secretly travels by train to the Forest of Compiègne to negotiate with French General Ferdinand Foch (Thibault de Montalembert) an armistice.

Also featuring in this film are Devid Striesow as the so-villainous-he-must-be-a-moustache-twirler General Friedrichs, as well as Andreas Döhler and Sebastian Hülk as two German officers.

This All Quiet on the Western Front occasionally frames its violent scenes as too painterly, the combat infrequently choreographed too closely to action movies (e.g., 2017’s Dunkirk is sometimes more of a suspense movie than it is a war movie and Sam Mendes’ 1917 from 2019 is an aesthetic challenge and action movie first, war film second). The opening moments are a dolly shot that linger over a patchwork of corpses strewn about No Man’s Land, with the dull rattle of machine gun fire occasionally disturbing the soil. There is an almost gawking approach to how cinematographer James Friend hovers over the bodies. One character’s death is shrouded in a blinding angelic light – applying too picturesque a technique for a non-fantastical moment.  Some exceptions to this voyeuristic, perhaps fetishistic approach to framing warfare appears, including the frightening emergence of French tanks through a cloud of gas. Berger succeeds in displaying war for all its brutality. The film’s sheen, however, comes off as too aggressive and its camerawork reflecting a Netflix-esque polish.

The most glaring misstep from the screenplay by Berger, Ian Stokell, and Lesley Paterson is to include any perspectives not involving Paul and his most immediate comrades. Depicting the insights of Erzberger, Foch, and the fictional General Friedrichs removes one of the central pillars of why All Quiet on the Western Front was such a revolutionary piece of literature. Remarque’s novel, at a time when “anti-war” narrative art was in its infancy, was one of the first war narratives that concentrated entirely on common soldiers – not the officers that commanded them or the politicians that guided them.

Before focusing on Paul and his friends, let us get the officers and politicians out of the way first. The insertion of the armistice negotiations and Gen. Friedrichs’ beliefs over politicians selling the Germany army out – more on this fiction shortly – stunts Paul and his friends’ respective character growths. And despite a decent performance from Brühl, these scenes (except for the final time the elite appear) play out repetitively: Erzberger pleads to Foch for a ceasefire, Foch demands a conditional surrender that will heavily punish Germany, and Erzberger mulls over the terms of surrender. This is all distracting from the common soldiers’ experiences, and provides as much cinematic or educational value as an amateur historical reenactment.

Berger’s stated justification for including these scenes – and letting them drag on too long in the film’s second half – is reasonable. Over the last decade, the actions of far right political groups in Germany have become more visible. These contemporary groups espouse the myths that some in 1920s and ‘30s Germany used to justify the nation’s actions leading up to World War II – all which monolithized and exploited German WWI trauma to serve repugnant purposes. The emotional imbalance of the Erzberger*/Foch scenes paints France and the Allies as an unforgiving “other”, as well as the war’s eventual “victors” (the Allies did prevail in WWI, but Remarque sees no winners in warfare).  For a work never meant to be an accusation and written in between the World Wars, the proto-fascist Gen. Friedrichs spits out an early form of the stab-in-the-back conspiracy theory‡. His behavior and appearance, eerily reminiscent of Allied propaganda of Germans as “the Hun”, casts him as the film’s obvious villain. These decisions all provide Berger’s All Quiet with a juxtaposition of morality more appropriate in a WWII movie than one for the Great War.

Beyond the implications of historical morality, Berger, Stokell, and Paterson’s screenplay undermines, at almost every juncture, Remarque’s critiques of the nationalism that began World War I. The decision to have Paul and his friends join the military in 1917 rather than 1914 (as it is in the book) makes it more difficult to have Paul and his friends to have conversations about the nature and the origins of this war. Instead, the screenplay keeps such dialogue to a minimum. As a result, Berger relies on cinematographer James Friend (in his first motion picture of note) to show us close-ups of Paul’s face to reveal his thoughts. In his film debut, Felix Kammerer is doing all he can with his facial and physical acting, but after a certain point this take on Paul results in him being an empty vessel.

Indeed, in Remarque’s book, Paul Bäumer is very much a reactive rather than proactive character. But that does not mean he is without deep introspection, as he is in this 2022 adaptation. Rather than someone who slowly realizes the nationalistic folly of WWI (“We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from true, we had suddenly learned to see.”), muses on how wars begin, and is anything but resigned to war’s inevitability, Kammerer’s Paul emotes and says nothing about these aspects of the war. Any critique from nationalism comes not from Paul in this adaptation, but from Gen. Friedrichs’ cartoonishly villainous behavior and Paul’s teachers in the film’s opening minutes. Paul and his friends are no battlefield geniuses, nor are they intellectuals. But the monotony of war – in the absence and presence of violence – grants them knowledge no classroom can give, wisdom that no elder can impart.

Berger, Stokell, and Paterson have the gall to delete entirely arguably the most critical passage in the book: Paul’s return home after being granted time for rest and recreation. After a lengthy spell fighting in the trenches, Paul’s leave completes his development as a naïve and adventure-seeking student to a detached, disillusioned man. Nationalism manipulates his father and others – mostly older men – into believing the justness of the conflict, that serving one’s country in warfare is glorious.

By contrast, Lewis Milestone’s 1930 adaptation takes Paul’s reunion with his teacher a step further than the book. In that version, instead of a chance encounter at a parade ground, Paul visits his teacher during class, with his newest students a rapt audience. The scene that follows is not subtle. But in the context of Milestone’s adaptation, the film earns it. As Paul, Lew Ayres refuses to gift his former teacher the heroic narrative he requests – paraphrasing Horace, decrying nationalism, and simply stating: “We try not to be killed; sometimes we are. That’s all.” One figures these are the words, delivered in sullen fury, by WWI’s veterans. Berger’s adaptation again leans too heavily on Kammerer to relate any semblance of the above ideas. There is no analogue scene to juxtapose the behavioral and psychological differences between battlefront and homefront, no character or even a faraway figure for Paul to verbally challenge. Kammerer’s Paul does undergo a behavioral and cognitive shift by the conclusion of 2022’s All Quiet. Yet, his transformation is not nearly as dramatic as the narrative needs it to be. These failures all stem from a screenplay that might as well have been titled something else. It is damningly incurious about Paul and his friends.

Major movie studio film scores are moving in a particular direction: amelodic, electronic, experimental, metallic, and minimalistic. It seems, by how awards voting bodies and audiences are reacting to such music, what I am about to write paints me more of an outlier than ever.

Composer Volker Bertelmann (also known as his stage name Hauschka; 2016’s Lion) concocts an anachronistic score that includes all these elements. Devoid entirely of recognizable melody (droning strings), Bertelmann’s score has one repetitive three-note idea – I refuse to call this a motif, as it lacks any sense of development from its first to final appearances – that damages and dominates the movie. Inserted in strangely timed moments and meant to intensify dread, Bertelmann’s idea begins from the root note (B♭), up a minor third (D♭), then descends a minor sixth (F). Bertelmann plays these three notes fortissimo, with synthesizer mimicking blaring brass – trust me, you know the sound and you may know its worst practitioners. When recurring underneath the strings, the idea modulates. Memorable as it may be, this metallic sound is more appropriate for hyping young men before a battle or at a rave rather than suggesting dread. Even worse: this is disruptive music. There is a healthy balance to when music should or should not accompany the imagery onscreen. One should notice music in a movie, and it should empower – but not completely overshadow – the emotions and ideas in respect to a certain scene. Bertelmann’s interruptions appear mostly in calms before the proverbial storms. These are the moments the characters and the audience should collect themselves before the killing restarts. Thus, his three-note idea abuses and instantly overstays its welcome.

Is there a place for such colorless, obnoxious, and offensively manipulative music in film? Certainly. Just not in anything entitled All Quiet on the Western Front.

On its surface, a German-language film adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front would restore a cultural and linguistic authenticity to Remarque’s text, one of the most important literary works in German history. To some extent, Berger succeeds. His All Quiet is a technical wonder, but its human interest is nil. Remarque’s prose is not the most accomplished, but his subjective descriptions of trench warfare and his characters’ philosophizing in moments of boredom and quiet were unlike anything almost any Western reader ever encountered. We, the readers, grow alongside Paul and his friends. In 1930, the viewers saw a small group of friends – Milestone’s adaptation is unique in that Paul does not truly emerge as the main character until halfway through the film – see their youth and optimism pummeled away with each shelling and charge. A humanity remains, but tenuously. Berger’s adaptation treads an easier path by inserting a reenactment of the armistice negotiations and expediting Paul’s characterization by immediately dismantling his inwardness and sense of hope.

As a document of a generation’s experiences, a critique of that era’s nationalism that led to the conflict, and a common soldier’s processing of the war’s origin and purpose, this is a poor adaptation of Remarque’s novel. It clears the hurdle in anti-war narratives by decrying warfare as ugly. Beyond this basic expectation, it accomplishes little else.

My rating: 6/10

* Erzberger was assassinated by the far-right terrorist organization Organisation Consul (OC) in 1921. The group was disbanded the year after, but its former members were absorbed into the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS).

‡ This conspiracy theory was primarily associated with Jews, but the Nazis also extended it to the political elite that negotiated the surrender. And as if it weren’t obvious enough, one of our German characters is stabbed in the back in the film’s concluding minutes.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[letterboxd-loggd]

Yella (2007) Christian Petzold

February 17th 2024

[marieantonanton]

I was seriously waiting for someone to do this... Had to do this myself lol

[moviemosaics]

All Quiet on the Western Front

directed by Edward Berger, 2022

[lajoiedefrancoise]

Im Westen Nichts Neues (2022)

[jmunneytumbler]

'All Quiet on the Western Lunch' (JK, It's 'Front,' But I Am Hungry)

'All Quiet on the Western Lunch' (JK, It's 'Front,' But I Am Hungry)

How QUIET is it?! (CREDIT: Reiner Bajo/Netflix) Starring: Felix Kammerrer, Albrecht Schuch, Aaron Hilmer, Moritz Klaus, Adrian Grünewald, Edin Hasanovic, Daniel Brühl, Thibault de Montalembert, Devid Striesow, Andreas Döhler, Sebastian Hülk Director: Edward Berger Running Time: 147 Minutes Rating: R Release Date: October 7, 2022 (Theaters)/October 28, 2022 (Netflix) I finally got around to seeing…

[rookie-critic]

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022, dir. Edward Berger) - review by Rookie-Critic

Showing the atrocities of war is always a tightrope walk. You want to show how brutal it is, you want to show people that this thing, this behemoth that has overtaken the world more times than can ever be counted, is horrid and should be avoided if at all possible, but you don't want to desensitize, you don't want to present it so fast, so hard, so unprofoundly nihilistic that it loses its meaning. You don't want to numb people to the pain or push your messaging past its limit, to make the term "war is hell" into a parody of itself. While there were a lot of things I really liked about Netflix and Edward Berger's remake of All Quiet on the Western Front, I feel like this is its biggest issue.

It revels in its "more is more" approach to showing how horrible the Western front lines of the first World War were and it causes the immersion to break and it cheapens the film's very real and very potent anti-war sentiment. The anti-war film is nothing new, we've seen this song dance a million times before, made extremely evident by the fact that this is a remake of the world's first significant anti-war film by the same name, which came out in 1930, 94 years prior to its successor. We've had close to a century of powerful, magnetic, devastating anti-war stories: from Chaplin's The Great Dictator to Kubrick's Paths of Glory AND Full Metal Jacket AND Dr. Strangelove to The Deer Hunter to Apocalypse Now to Das Boot, Platoon, Grave of the Fireflies, 1917, Jojo Rabbit, and on, and on, and on. We get the song, we get the dance, it is a very important message, but we no longer need it spoon-fed to us. The unfortunate thing about the new Western Front is that its images and iconography are intensely powerful and very profound, they get there and they do it fabulously, but then they don't stop. Every scene has an element to it that feels superfluous, that feels like they're bashing your head against the wall that says "war is hell" and screaming at you "DON'T YOU GET IT?!" The answer is, yes, I do, I got it, and I would have without a lot of the, for lack of a better term, extra that's here.

To lay out my point with an example from the film, and don't worry it's not really going to spoil anything (although if you really don't want to know then you should just skip ahead to the next paragraph), but there's a scene in the film involving the general who is in charge of our protagonist's regiment. This immediately follows what is possibly the most intense and brutal sequence in the entire film (which, again, outside of a handful of superfluous elements, is really quite a powerful sequence), and the film juxtaposes all the horror we just witnessed with this general, sitting safely in a very large dining room, eating a feast with a direct subordinate. We get extreme closes ups of everything on the table: olives, fresh bread, a whole leg of lamb, wine, which he drinks a few sips of then tosses the rest on the floor and asks for more. He does this thing with the wine several times throughout the scene. He asks his subordinate about his life back home and what he will return to once the war is over and the subordinate tells him about his family's riding saddle manufacturing/selling business. The subordinate asks the same question to the general and the general goes on a tangent about how he is a soldier who was born in the wrong time because, before this current war, his whole life had been peaceful. He says "what is a soldier without war?" Then tosses what looks like more than half of the meat on his plate to the dog sitting on the floor. This scene would be so infuriatingly impactful and meaningful if the film didn't insist on shoving the message down our throats. I didn't need close ups of the food, I didn't need the spectacle of watching him deliberately waste food and drink, I didn't need this man's hypocrisy slammed into my eyeballs a thousand times over. The atrocious nature of the scenario lies in the scenario itself! Just cut to this horrible man eating his clearly excessive meal in safe quarters after we just watched a lot of men that he is responsible for get brutally mowed down for nothing; no close-ups of the food, no excessive food waste, just the scene itself. Let him talk about how much of a soldier he is. Let this moment be peaceful, that in and of itself would be powerful enough. We, the audience, will get there. We will understand what the film is getting at, it's not that difficult to comprehend, but this is the kind of thing that permeates the entire film.

Here's the thing, I'm still going to give All Quiet on the Western Front a good score, because the truth is I still really liked it. The film has an excellent core. The acting, for the most part, is amazing. The cinematography is unbelievable and the production value is off the charts. Even the story itself, while not really new, is engaging and has a very strong foundation. I just wish it had trusted its audience more and didn't feel the need to just keep adding to itself, to keep piling on more and more until it's just hard to stay engaged. I'm sure this will win a fair amount of Oscars, and it's not entirely undeserving of them, but I don't think it entirely deserves the near-unanimous praise its been getting, because there are a fair amount of problems with it.

Score: 7/10

Currently streaming on Netflix.

[laserpinksteam]

Film after film: Bungalow (dir. Ulrich Köhler, 2002)

A slow-burn of a film, tagged by Mubi as an example of the "Berlin School" filmmaking, of which I wasn't aware. Burmeister is a magnetic anti-protagonist, who rarely changes his face expression and yet is an interesting character, an awol soldier in training who decides not to come back and passively drift around his family's bungalow, while waiting for the situation's resolution. The moments of him being alone, skating, masturbating, and just hanging out, are my favorite.

[enibas22]

IG audibede - 2nd July 2023

@devidstriesow & @tomwlaschiha sind Rocket und Star-Lord. Habt ihr schon reingehört? #MarvelWastelanders

[randomrichards]

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (2022):

Naive best friends

Witness the horrors of war

Soldiers get disposed

[leinwandfrei]

Zurück auf die Bühne - "Wann wird es endlich wieder so, wie es nie war" von Sonja Heiss

Tragikomödien und autofiktionale oder autobiografische Werke sind derzeit erfolgreiche Formate, in Buch-, Film- und Serienformat. Joachim Meyerhoff hat aus dieser Verquickung unter dem Titel Alle Toten fliegen hoch zunächst eine Reihe von solistischen Theaterstücken entwickelt und dann seit 2011 bis dato fünf Romane daraus entwickelt, in welchen er von seiner Kindheit in einer Psychiatrie, dem durch den tödlichen Autounfall seines Bruders abrupt beendeten Amerikaaustausch in seiner Jugend, der Schauspielausbildung und den ersten Engagements, Liebschaften und Kindern erzählt. Im 2020 erschienen letzten Band Hamster im hinteren Stromgebiet berichtete er zuletzt von seinem Schlaganfall und dessen Folgen für sein Fühlen, Denken und vor allem das Schreiben - also sein Leben. Ein weiteres Buch ist nach seinen Aussagen in Arbeit. Nun hat sich die Regisseurin Sonja Heiss der Reihe angenommen und mit Wann wird es endlich wieder so, wie es nie war einen Film aus Aspekten der ersten beiden Romane zusammengestellt. Damit kehrt der Stoff gewissermaßen auf die Bühne zurück, der Kreis schließt sich also. Auf dieser „Bühne“ stehen neben drei Versionen von Joachim "Jossi" (Camille Loup Moltzen als Kind, Arsseni Bultmann als Jugendlicher und Merlin Rose als Erwachsener) Devid Striesow als Vater und Laura Tonke als Mutter. Einen Auftritt der besonderen Art hat Axel Milberg als Ministerpräsident bei einem vermeintlich werbewirksamen Besuch der Einrichtung. Für eine deutsche Produktion bleibt der Anteil an vom Fernsehen verbrauchten Gesichtern aber erfreulicherweise gering bzw. die verbrauchte Wirkung bleibt aus. Die Rollen sind in diesem Fall größer als ihre Darsteller.

Erzählt wird der Film in drei Etappen: Kindheit – Teenager – Erwachsen. Einleitend wird die Familie beim Strandausflug begleitet. Auf der Rückfahrt hat Jossi seinen ersten Aggressionsanfall und kann nur schwer gebändigt und auf die Waschmaschine zuhause gesetzt werden. Die beiden rauchenden Eltern flankieren den konzentriert singenden Jungen. Ihre Unterhaltung ist beispielhaft für die Ambivalenz von oberflächlicher Komik und realer innerer Tragik. Auf die Frage der Mutter, ob sich das den mal gibt, antwortet der Vater nur, dass es dem Jungen doch gut gehe, er sitze doch jetzt ruhig da. Und außerdem gäbe es ja viel schlimmere Fälle. Als Leiter einer großen Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie sollte er das einschätzen können. Insgesamt ist seine Art der Behandlung vorwegschauend, da er von der Verwahrung zur Therapie kommen möchte und den „Wahnsinn“ der Patientin für weniger schlimm hält als die „Normalität“ mancher bürgerlichen Familie. Daraufhin wird Jossi auf dem Weg zum erwachsenen und pflegenden Sohn begleitet, vom 40. Geburtstag des Vaters bis hin zu dessen 50. Geburtstag, der aufgrund seiner Krebserkrankung vorgezogen gefeiert wird ��� er will wieder rauchen dürfen. Dazwischen zerbricht die Familie, langsam und weniger von großen als dezenten Ausbrüchen angekündigt. Die Konflikte brodeln dauerhaft spürbar unter der Oberfläche. Die Mutter versucht dem Leben mit Träumen von Italien und Malen zu entfliehen, doch nach dem zentralen Weihnachtsfiasko (eine der großen Szenen des Films) unter Verwendung des neuen elektrischen Messers, scheint nichts mehr zu kitten zu sein. Dabei sehnt sich Jossi sichtlich nach echter Harmonie. Und auch sein Bruder Philipp zeigt im Gespräch an diesem Abend, dass er diese Harmonie ebenfalls ersehnt. Aus dem spottenden Gespräch darüber, was die Mutter wohl noch alles hätte zerschneiden können, kommen sie vom Vater, der dann ja gleichzeitig arbeiten und Zeit mit der Familie verbringen könnte, zu Weihnachten, dass man doch nicht einfach so zerschneiden könne. Auf wessen Seite die Kinder stehen ist überdeutlich – nicht nur am Tag nach dem Weihnachtsfiasko, an dem sie alle (bis auf Jossi) mit der Mutter den Tisch verlassen als der Vater auftaucht. Doch eine klare Schuld ist dennoch nicht zuzuordnen.

Der Vater wird zunehmend zur tragischen Gestalt, inmitten der von ihm betreuten Kinder- und Jugendlichen, die ganz alltäglicher Bestandteil des Familienlebens sind. Wenn Jossi selbst nach einem letzten folgenreichen Ausbruch im Patientenbett aufwacht, ist seine Scham der Beleg dafür, dass er dennoch die beiden Welten trennen möchte. Trotzdem ist seine erste große Liebe Marlene eine depressive Patientin, die sich später dann beim zweiten Versuch umbringt. Ihr erster Kuss wird von „Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein“ (der nicht weinen muss) begleitet, gefolgt von „Felicita“, worauf Jossi und seine Mutter tanzen – ein trauriger Kommentar zur aufgesetzten Fröhlichkeit innerhalb der Familie und der tiefen, endlosen Traurigkeit von Marlene. Beiden scheint nicht zu helfen zu sein. Die Brüder bringen Jossi zu seinem mittleren Anfall, wenn sie sagen, dass es nur logisch sei, wenn der verrückte und in einer Klinik aufgewachsene Arztsohn Jossi sich zuerst in eine Verrückte verliebe. Als Teenager muss (bzw. kann) er natürlich jetzt nicht mehr auf die Waschmaschine gesetzt werden und muss sich selbst beruhigen. Das Verhältnis der Brüder ist alles in allem ambivalent. Einerseits provozieren die beiden Älteren das Küken oder den "Wasserkopf" Jossi immer wieder, andererseits helfen sie sich gegenseitig und führen offene, trockene Gespräche über die Liebe und ihre Familie. Diese Offenheit, von den Patienten vorgelebt, prägt (einerseits) das gesamte Familienkonstrukt und ist (andererseits) der Mangel, an welchem die Beziehung der Eltern zusehends zerfällt. Dennoch steht am Ende ein angedeutetes Happyend für Jossi und seine Eltern, wenn der Film mit den Klängen von T-Rex's Cosmic dancer ausklingt, während Jossi auf die Aquarien seines Bruders und darüber hinaus weit in die fantastische Welt der Vorstellung blickt.

Als Literaturverfilmung ist diese Produktion gelungen, weil sich die Regisseurin und Drehbuchautorin (mit Lars Hubrich) auf bestimmte Motive der ersten beiden Romane Meyerhoffs konzentriert und einige Aspekte vereinfacht, auf das wesentliche reduziert und damit verkürzt. Die grundmenschlichen Dramen werden auch ohne Begriffe wie Depression (hier wird immer nur von Traurigkeit geredet), Ehekrise und posttraumatischer Belastungsstörung (wie sie dem Schulleiter Jossis sicherlich zu attestieren ist) deutlich und wirken unterschwellig umso stärker. Zudem gelingt, nicht nur musikalisch, ein überzeugendes Zeitporträt der 1980er Jahre. Von der Schrift der Darstellereinblenden, über die Kleidung, die Einrichtung bis hin zu den Kassetten fügt sich alles zu einer entsprechenden Kulisse zusammen und vor allem wird eine bestimmte Stimmung transportiert, die nicht nur auf diese Familie zu begrenzen ist. Die Schauspielerei und die Großeltern, die in den beiden Folgebänden eine große Rolle spielen, sind ebenso wie die Selbstzweifel und Orientierungslosigkeit des Ich-Erzählers kein Thema und der Fokus damit tendenziell stärker auf das Familienkonstrukt gerichtet. Sonja Heiss gelingt damit die schwierige Aufgabe einer Literaturverfilmung, indem sie sich auf eine eigene Interpretation der Geschichte und das Bewahren der Grundstimmung fokussiert. Schauspielerisch sind hier nicht die großen Gesten gefordert (Jossis Aggressionsmomente ausgeschlossen), sondern die beiläufige Darstellung. Dabei ist die Leistung von Arsseni Bultmann als Teenager Joachim besonders zu betonen, da er in diesem (großen) Abschnitt die meiste Leinwandzeit bestreitet. Seine Kinder-Version Camille Loup-Moltzen steht dem aber in nichts nach. Die Patienten der Klinik wiederum werden als Teil des Alltags gezeigt und ernst genommen. Sie werden im Verhältnis zur Romanvorlage weniger klassifiziert und etwas gemäßigter dargestellt. Die Familie lebt den Gedanken der Inklusion, bevor es zur großen gesellschaftlichen Debatte geworden ist. In den Schlussszenen scheint die Grenze zwischen Familie und Patienten räumlich endgültig aufgelöst zu sein, da Jossis Vater die letzte Kraft verlassen hat diese aufrechtzuerhalten.

Insgesamt ist die Entscheidung zur Reduktion und Vereinfachung hier der erfolgreiche Weg zu einem allgemeingültigeren und kindlicheren (also unverstellten) Blick auf eine einmalige und zugleich beispielhafte Familiengeschichte mit tragischen und zugleich unheimlich komischen Momenten. Das Potential  des Genres Tragikomödie trifft auf eine gute Geschichte – und damit entsteht ein mit 116 Minuten verhältnismäßig „kurzer“ Film, prallgefüllt mit direkt gezeigten und unterschwellig vermittelten Aspekten, welche die Ambivalenz jeder Situation spürbar, aber nicht immer bildlich belegbar machen. Ein en gros gelungenes Projekt in einem derzeit beliebten Format mit großem Erfolgspotential – wie die durchgängig begeisterten Kritiken belegen. Allenfalls wird von einzelnen Rezensenten mangelnde Tiefe in der Figurendarstellung, fehlende Kantigkeit oder Farblosigkeit bis hin zu einem langweiligen Gesamteindruck kommentiert. Die letzten beiden Einschätzungen lassen sich auch als ruhige, weniger problematisierende und überdramatisierende Stilistik als für viele aktuelle Filme üblich, auslegen. An die menschliche Nähe von Close kommt das Kamerateam zwar nicht heran, aber diese herausragende Klasse hat den Film auch zum Oscarnominierten Beitrag für Belgien gemacht, da es eine einzigartige Leistung von Lukas Dhont ist. Sonja Heiss präsentiert dennoch einen einfühlsamen und echt wirkenden Film. Sie überragt damit die Mehrzahl der versucht komischen bis peinlichen, oder dramatischen bis melodramatischen deutschen Produktionen des Mainstream-Bereichs, in welchen ihr Werk als Bestseller-Verfilmung leider automatisch fällt. Einen Oscar oder den Deutschen Filmpreis gewinnt man damit vielleicht nicht, dafür fehlt dann das große Thema und die Dramatisierung einer Alltagsgeschichte. Aber das ist nicht zwingend ein schlechtes Zeichen oder die einzig mögliche Messbarkeit der Klasse eines Films.