"Das Haus ihres Vaters", which means "Her father's house", is a German television film from 2010, so this one has its 10th anniversary this year. Initially, they planned to go with the title "Das Haus meines Vaters", which means "My father's house", but for that the girl was probably not protagonist enough. Anyway, this film is based on a book by a writer who died 20 years before this movie was made. I have not read said book, so I cannot talk about parallels and differences between the base material and the movie, but I genuinely hope that the book was better than the adaptation here. Maybe it is a good thing the writer did not have to see the travesty they turned this into. I will spare you the names of the two screenplay writers because they really do not deserve to be named. There is no quality in the screenplay sadly. But the director shall be named. Matthias Tiefenbacher was the man in charge behind the camera here, fairly experienced filmmaker, but just like with his two writers, his body of work is considerably more about quantity than quality and this film here is probably not even his worst achievement, even if it is pretty bad already. As for the cast, Sarnau is easy to identify although I personally keep mixing her up a bit with Sonsee Neu, but my felllow German film buffs will recognize the face for sure. Same applies to Hans-Jochen Wagner, an actor with a face that is pretty easy to recognize, but maybe not too many will remember his name. Same is true for Saskia Vester who always reminds me physically of Martha Plympton, even if she is certainly not a talented actress. Vester I mean. Nonetheless, she was better here than in other films, maybe because she is "only" a big supporting player. Lisa Kreuzer is in it too, but only briefly. Early on, she has one longer scene and another brief inclusion at the end. Sturm I personally did not recognize and Hollinderbäumer from the abysmal "heute show" has basically one scene only. So we do have an experienced cast here, one that is better than what you usually get for German small screen releases and I personally felt the cast was the smallest problem this 1.5-hour movie had. Admittedly, they weren't good either, but there are many other weaker aspects, most of all the script obviously. Oh, I forgot one actress, namely the young Janina Stopper, who is pretty much a co-lead. She was surprisingly good and it makes me a bit sad to see that later on, she was mostly on stuff like "Aktenzeichen XY". I ee some talent in her, nut just good looks. I hope she can have a better career and things go north for her again.
Like I said in the title of my review, I kind awanted to like this. The idea of a mother wanting to get in touch with her now almost grown-up daughter is interetsing enough to result in a decent film with solid execution. Sadly, this is not what we get here. It wwas never half as emotional as it could have been. Always bleak and stale. A lot of it has to do with Sarnau's performance. I don't think she was up for the challenge to carry this movie mostly on her shoulders, which would have been her task playing the central character. I saw three face expressions max from her here and that makes one every half hour. Not fulfilling at all. Nonetheless it must be said that probably not even the most talented actress on the planet could have turned this into a quality watch. the writing is just too poor. Honestly, I had moments when, mostly thanks to the female child actress, I considered giving this two stars out of five and not two stars out of ten, but then reality hit and there is just no way for me to say this is a weak film. It is a terrible film. ARD once again delivering nothing but crap. One thing you very frequently find in these films are anti-male messages, simply because the films are for women mostly. Let's take a look at the men in this film. The biological father? Dead. Her husband? Has to deal with his wife not saying a thing that she has a daughter for almost 20 years and even now she does not respond when being asked. Of course, she has to mean the world for him and he will still stay with her 100%. JJust like every male should behave in this scenario. The adopted father? More of a muppet. Also has to love his wife dearly and yet is not taken seriously. When mother and daughter are in Italy and Sarnau's character calls, she gets him on the phone, but immeediately wants to talk to vester's character instead. He also has to stay behind, despite offering to drive with her. Okay. And very early on, we have some scenes from the court the female protagonist is working at. One husband there is boastful and loud and insulting. The next we hear nothing from, but see that he punched his wife violently in the face. Sweet. At the same time, all the female characters may have flaws too, but still they are depicted as likable and caring. Revolting really. Oh yeah, of course our heroine is also a top judge, youngest in her position, so really successful professional, successful enough for her big boss to show up and talk to her and say how she is his best "employee". Sigh. By the way, one male character/actor I did not mention yet is the boy. He was bad, also more because of the writing though. His statement early on about how he has lived in that house with this family for x years and knows when something is wrong felt so fake, like even daddy did not realize, but of course he was right. And when the boy knows eventually that the girl is his sister (well, half-sister), this was the final nail in the coffin when I had no doubt I have to give this film the lowest rating possible. On my scale, that is. I don't hand out 1s. It is also debatable how realistic the spontaneous trip to Italy may be at the end or how realistic the fact may be that the girl is on the other scale of the law initially, but I would have said one of these two things would have been enough. In general, this movie strugggles very hard with character development. Like early on, Sarnau's character and how she has not cared for her daugghter for 17 years and then breaks into tears in the bathroom and won't let go when it comes to finding her and staying in touch, only to tell Vester's character near the end that she is ready to do so. made no sense. Vester's character the same: She tells the biological mother to disappear from their lives, but 10 minutes later, she understands her motivation and is not so strict anymore. And finally, the daughter. She is so mad at her real mother and adopted mother on different occasions, but quickly i all calm and restrained again, even travelling out of nowhere to Italy with her biological mother. For hours in the same car with the woman she insulted very harshly five minutes earlier. Sigh. It is just not working out. This also applies to the forced happy ending again. The girl is once again (and rightfully) in rage mode and after being for herself in the nature briefly, she is all calm and restrained and lost all her angger and there is so much harmony between her and Vester's character, while Sarnau's is driving home on her own showing us how kind of a woman she is and that she would never take away her daughter from the woman who took care of said daughter in the last 17 years. It just does not feel authentic whatsoever. Nothing about this movie really, even the smaller moments like daddy being called to the hospital right on time for mother to read the letter from Italy. Just one of many exammples during which this film came extremely short quality-wise. Very disappointing. So yeah, the song during the closing credits was nice, but this is also the only positive thing I can say about the music here. The soundtrack is also rather on the pseudo important side. Fat thumbs-down for this film. Highly not recommended.
Like I said in the title of my review, I kind awanted to like this. The idea of a mother wanting to get in touch with her now almost grown-up daughter is interetsing enough to result in a decent film with solid execution. Sadly, this is not what we get here. It wwas never half as emotional as it could have been. Always bleak and stale. A lot of it has to do with Sarnau's performance. I don't think she was up for the challenge to carry this movie mostly on her shoulders, which would have been her task playing the central character. I saw three face expressions max from her here and that makes one every half hour. Not fulfilling at all. Nonetheless it must be said that probably not even the most talented actress on the planet could have turned this into a quality watch. the writing is just too poor. Honestly, I had moments when, mostly thanks to the female child actress, I considered giving this two stars out of five and not two stars out of ten, but then reality hit and there is just no way for me to say this is a weak film. It is a terrible film. ARD once again delivering nothing but crap. One thing you very frequently find in these films are anti-male messages, simply because the films are for women mostly. Let's take a look at the men in this film. The biological father? Dead. Her husband? Has to deal with his wife not saying a thing that she has a daughter for almost 20 years and even now she does not respond when being asked. Of course, she has to mean the world for him and he will still stay with her 100%. JJust like every male should behave in this scenario. The adopted father? More of a muppet. Also has to love his wife dearly and yet is not taken seriously. When mother and daughter are in Italy and Sarnau's character calls, she gets him on the phone, but immeediately wants to talk to vester's character instead. He also has to stay behind, despite offering to drive with her. Okay. And very early on, we have some scenes from the court the female protagonist is working at. One husband there is boastful and loud and insulting. The next we hear nothing from, but see that he punched his wife violently in the face. Sweet. At the same time, all the female characters may have flaws too, but still they are depicted as likable and caring. Revolting really. Oh yeah, of course our heroine is also a top judge, youngest in her position, so really successful professional, successful enough for her big boss to show up and talk to her and say how she is his best "employee". Sigh. By the way, one male character/actor I did not mention yet is the boy. He was bad, also more because of the writing though. His statement early on about how he has lived in that house with this family for x years and knows when something is wrong felt so fake, like even daddy did not realize, but of course he was right. And when the boy knows eventually that the girl is his sister (well, half-sister), this was the final nail in the coffin when I had no doubt I have to give this film the lowest rating possible. On my scale, that is. I don't hand out 1s. It is also debatable how realistic the spontaneous trip to Italy may be at the end or how realistic the fact may be that the girl is on the other scale of the law initially, but I would have said one of these two things would have been enough. In general, this movie strugggles very hard with character development. Like early on, Sarnau's character and how she has not cared for her daugghter for 17 years and then breaks into tears in the bathroom and won't let go when it comes to finding her and staying in touch, only to tell Vester's character near the end that she is ready to do so. made no sense. Vester's character the same: She tells the biological mother to disappear from their lives, but 10 minutes later, she understands her motivation and is not so strict anymore. And finally, the daughter. She is so mad at her real mother and adopted mother on different occasions, but quickly i all calm and restrained again, even travelling out of nowhere to Italy with her biological mother. For hours in the same car with the woman she insulted very harshly five minutes earlier. Sigh. It is just not working out. This also applies to the forced happy ending again. The girl is once again (and rightfully) in rage mode and after being for herself in the nature briefly, she is all calm and restrained and lost all her angger and there is so much harmony between her and Vester's character, while Sarnau's is driving home on her own showing us how kind of a woman she is and that she would never take away her daughter from the woman who took care of said daughter in the last 17 years. It just does not feel authentic whatsoever. Nothing about this movie really, even the smaller moments like daddy being called to the hospital right on time for mother to read the letter from Italy. Just one of many exammples during which this film came extremely short quality-wise. Very disappointing. So yeah, the song during the closing credits was nice, but this is also the only positive thing I can say about the music here. The soundtrack is also rather on the pseudo important side. Fat thumbs-down for this film. Highly not recommended.
