Horst_In_Translation Review of Rock My Heart

Rock My Heart (2017)

That kind of film you don't want your teenage daughter to see

[2/10 · 31 March 2019]

"Rock my Heart is" a German 105-minute (or slightly longer with credits) movie from 2017, so it is not a new release, but still relatively recent. The director is Hanno Olderdissen and he is also part of the writing staff for this film. It is his second full feature film i believe. If you take a look at the cast list, you will find many known names: Hallervorden, Peschel, Frier, von Bülow, Sarnau, Stier and these are only the ones that come to mind for me. There is certainly many more experienced actors to be seen here. Even lead actress Lena Klenke is much more prolific already than you would imagine given her age, which, however, is considerably above the age of the character she is portraying. This is a film about a young female protagonist struggling with heart disease and how her life takes a completely new direction when getting in touch with Hallervorden's character and a very special horse. So yep there are many parallels to Ostwind here, a fairly long-running film franchise here in Germany these days and I think 4 installments have been released already. Admittedly, Ostwind id not good, not at all, but neither is this one here. It is probably on the same level as the Ostwind film with the lowest quality (maybe the third or second, the first was tolerable, 4th I haven't seen yet). Which means "Rock My Heart" is as bad as its title is cringeworthy. A lot. This is the name of the horse by the way and of course a reference to the main character's disease. Okay, I will give you a few examples of specific moments and scenes that were the evidence for me why this is not a good movie. First of all, it needs to be said that even most of the more famous actors have either not enough screen time, weak material or are just not giving good performances. The one exception is Hallervorden. Then again, they certainly used his big name a lot here and he is definitely the MVP from the cast. But that is also because everybody else is pretty pale and he is at least rocksolid as always thanks to his great charisma too. Lead actress Klenke tries to make the most with what she is given, which is not a lot. Ik still think she is better than the lead actress from Ostwind (1-3). Now about the specific scenes I mentioned. All the dramatic scenes involving the heart disease feel fake and for the sake of it and the consequence is that there is never really genuine emotion coming up. You have to be very foolish (or very young) to fall fotr this. The best example is how she lies motionless on the ground after the race. I cringed, i won#t deny it. Well, the romance aspect, of course there is one was not too good either, which also had to do with the bad line delivery from the male actor. As for the race, it is just ridiculous. It was always clear she would win it to be triumphant and also get the money for keeping the farm. Another highly stereotypical threat (the bank) that added nothing except shaking heads. But yeah back to the race, there is just no way after how it all started that she would still win it in reality. Absolutely. No. F. Way. But the filmmakers here (and it was not just one foolish) writer really expect to believe us. The epitome of dramatic for the sake of it and just highly unauthentic. And finally the way in which Hallervorden's character moves the ailing protagonist out of the hospital up onto the horse. That had almost horror movie potential admittedly. Heavy stuff how the filmmakers here also gave modern medicine the middle finger. Of course, our heroine will only get better on top of her beloved horse. And of course the horse is suffering too in the absence of his rider. Now as for Hallervorden's character, it is truly baffling how the parents (especially Frier) are still so in favor of the man despite what his daughter diid because of him. I mean in real life they would have sued him for sure. Or strictly forbidden their daughter to have any kind of contact with him. Here the father is chill, the mother is fuming, but also only for seconds until she realizes how Hallervorden's character helped her daughter to find meaning and find a dream worth fighting for. It just doesn't make sense. I cannot even call the film pretentious, because of how shoddy it is written despite the makers here clearly thinking they come up with something extraordinary. Character writing is also not their strength by any means. Shades are virtually non-existent whatsoever. Either completely good characters (almost all of them really) or antagonists that of course are just jealous etc. How uncreative. The ending indicated there could be a sequel. I hope not, this first film was bad enough already. Such a shame that the current generation of horse-themed films for kids/girls here in Germany is so bad after Buck's Bibi&Tina (okay not sure you cann call that horse-themed) was pretty solid and entertaining. "Rock My Heart" did not rock my world at all. Huge thumbs-down and I suggest you keep your distance from this one.