"Liegen lernen" or "Learning to Lie" (could slightly be misunderstood this title) is a German movie from 2003, so this one had its 15th anniversary last year. It was directed by Henk Handloegten and he also adapted the novel this is based on. At under 90 minutes including credits, it really isn't a very long film, but that is good in this very case because honestly it did feel a bit repetitive. Anyway, first things first. Back in the early 2000s, most German films were still rather about the Fall of the Berlin Wall than the years of Nazi Germany and World War II and this one is not an exception, although you could really say that these events are just happening in the background and are mentioned, but the film is never about any of these really. It is about Helmut, played by Fabian Busch, and the women in his life in the sense of love interests. One after the other. And also how his perception of love changes over the years with the experiences he made. The girls are played by Susanne Bormann, Fritzi Haberlandt, Sophie Rois and Birgit Minichmayr if we count all these that have a little more screen time only. Early on, he is a hopeless romantic still crushing hard on his first love, who obviously does not have the same strong feelings for him as she quickly after it started with him decides to move to the United States for a year and go to school there. But still, she seems to feel some kind of connection with Helmut too as she keeps coming back to him, admittedly only every time he asks for her and then he gets over her for a while again and finds somebody new and so on. Admittedly I must say I struggle with seeing any real appeal in this movie to be honest. It is almost never bad or anything and it does feel kinda realistic, but still I wonder why it was made because honestly in my opinion neither Helmut nor the girls really deserve a film being made about them. And admittedly with so much heartbreak and love going on, the film stayed surprisingly unemotional to me and I never cared a lot for the protagonist to find love. He is also not a perfect fella or anything, that much is safe, and the best moment is when we see him break up with Haberlandt's character. It is basically tables turned overall you could say compared to his relationship with Bormann's character early on. He is the one that lost interestg now relatively quickly. But when he tells her he doesn't know if he still loves her if she caught him with Rois' character, this is of course a definite "No", even if he does not dare to say it, so he would not hurt her any further. By the way stiull baffling to see Haberlandt won a German Film Award for this performance. I mean she is not bad or anything, but she does not stand out whatsoever compared to the other girls except she is really the one who is innocent and pure good and I guess that was enough. The Academy sure likes her. Now as for the film itself, it is a bit of coming-of-age story, even if there is little focus on anything other than the romantic relationships, so maybe you cannot call the film like that. What else can I say here. Yeah there were bad moments too. For example Florian Lukas was the ultimate supporting actor star in Germany back then, but here he adds absolutely nothing in terms of performance or the character as a whole and could or should have been left out completely. Here and there a few references about the Fall of the Berlin Wall I mentioned earlier, in addition also some personal events that may have shaped the protagonist less than I would have expected like his parents' divorce and of course all the love relationships. That's all you get with this film. It is more about drama than comedy, but it does not deliver sufficiently in either department. My suggestion is to skip the watch and go for something else instead. Final note: I have not read the book this is based on, so I cannot say if it is as forgettable as the film or if the quzality was lost in translation.
Review of Liegen lernen
