You know the sort of person who wears sunglasses to a party? Who takes a few too many drugs and is loud and obnoxious? Who wears a Christian Ronaldo T-shirt with the slogan CR7?
Well, that’s enough of the people sat next to me who talked their way through the film and laughed at inappropriate moments. No wait, that’s Lenz. Lenz is – we’re not sure really, he doesn’t seem to do much more than wander round Kreuzberg and feel sorry for himself. Sounds like he’s in Marketing, then.
Much more interesting is Lenz’s on-off girlfriend Ira, who unencrypts data or somesuch. It would be great to know more about Ira, but seeing as we almost exclusively see her through Lenz’s eyes, her main job is to tell him to shut up when he’s being boring, which is most of the time. You can understand why Ira keeps donning a flak jacket and going to Afghanistan, less so why she bothers to come back.
Apparently the film is supposed to say profound and hilarious things about a new generations’s attitude to life and love. But Lenz is just too much of a dick for us (or at least me) to feel any sympathy. And anyone who can afford to live in Kreuzberg nowadays without doing any apparent work is only representative of a small sliver of any generation.
I wanted to like it, but it just wasn’t funny enough and the characters weren’t sympathetic enough to keep me onside. Even with other stuff about Osama Bin Laden and missing planes and wanted and unwanted babies and all that, you never felt that any of it really mattered.
Can a film be too long if its less than 90 minutes? Cos this one gallantly tried.
CinePhil 