"Die kleine Meerjungfrau" is a German television film from 2013, so not that long actually anymore until this one has its tenth anniversary and if you need a little longer to get here and check out my review, maybe it happened already. I am sure this film will be on national television here and there for at least another five years, maybe ten. The title means of course "The Little Mermaid" and this is obviously based on a tale by Hans Christian Andersen. His story was turned into film on quite a few occasions, also really, really long ago, even if the most known is of course the animated version almost everybody knows in which title character has this striking red hair. The director here his Irina Popow and she worked on some pretty trashy stuff early on in her career (Marienhof, In aller Freundschaft, Julia - Wege zum Glück), but then made a successful turn for the better (not great) by mostly focusing on series made for younger audiences. So no surprise that the rare occasion that she worked on a movie, this is also for younger audiences again. She is still active nowadays and let's forgive her her work on Verbotene Liebe which she really should have skipped quality-wise. The writer is Bettine von Borries. She has been part of a lot that I enjoyed, no matter if we are talking about the animated "Die drei Räuber", which was her rookie effort, or the more recent "Alone in Berlin", so I must say I am a bit disappointed that I did not like this film here that much really. Maybe my least favorite release from her, but hey nobody's perfect. This is, as you can see from the very top of the film poster here on imdb, another one of these uncountable fairytale films from the last 15 years or so, maybe even more already, that were made by ARd and its smaller stations and are shown nowadays too. I guess the reason why this, because of how popular it is, was not among the first tales they turned into a film is because they mostly focused on the Brothers Grimm early on if I remember correctly.
Let's take a look at the cast next. Most of the time, they are using the formula that they picked rather unknown young actors for the roles of the protagonist(s) (princesses and princes) and the major supporting players are fairly famous grown-up actors. This is also the case here to some extent. Zoe Moore, however, who plays the title character is an actress who has been really prolific since way before 2013, so she is a face that many will recognize I assume. She is also a German actress which you may not have guessed from the name. Actually, she comes from my city, the German capital Berlin. Her male co-lead Philipp Danne here I am not familiar with at all though. Probably my loss if I see In aller Freundschaft, Tessa and Alarm für Cobra 11 being his defining career "achievements" so far. Not surprised at all. He seemed incredibly bland in this movie and was one key reason why I did not end up liking it. All about the hunky stature I suppose, but nothing beony that in terms of range or talent. Also really difficult this way to cheer for the protagonists to become a couple or something. It was already difficult enough because Maria Ehrich is an actress who I think is very stunning, so I may have liked the film more with her in the lead. And the hair color is not a problem either because Moore has almost always had darker hair than she wears in this movie, so Ehrich also could have gone blonde if necessary. The two big name actors here are of course Ben Becker and Meret Becker, who have a family reunion deep under the sea here and there is some relationship between those characters from past events that we do not know about that make it seem a bit interesting. Sadly the focus is never really on that at all. If we take a look at the Disney movie, they play the characters that we know as Triton and Ursula, even if those could not look any more different in terms of shape, size and (hair) color. I shall talk a bit about that in the next paragraph.
In general, you are doing alright if you do not expect the story from the Disney movie. This film here is highly different and probably way closer to the original tale by Andersen than to the movie. There are so many examples. Two key examples would be how the sea witch here is not evil or anything, but on the contrary, she fulfills the mermaid's wish, but the price that comes with it is none from which the witch can draw any advantage for hersellf or something. And the ending too. The prince gets married to another woman, but the mermaid still has some kind of success because, even if she did not the guy (she should be grateful as I already mentioned the bland actor), she is on the beginning of a long journey and about to experience everything from the world and not just the bottom of the sea. The sea witch accompanies her on the beginning of this journey. So there is definitely considerably less closure here compared to all the other relatively recent fairytale films. Actually, the ending was in a way where you could think that there might even be a sequel at some point. But of course, it did not happen. That would have been too much I suppose. It never happened with the other films, so not with this one here either and maybe it also would have lead everybody too far from the original. And completely aside from that, it was also a good choice because this film here simply was not good. The costumes and sets are alright most of the time, but this cannot make me forget about the mediocrity in terms of characters and acting and other aspects.
Of course, another thing you won't find here is the music. I mean you will find a soundtrack obviously because a film, especially one like this, without a soundtrack would be pretty strange, but yeah I still think they could have done better from that perspective and I don't need wild singing or a musical really. It's perfectly fine if they focus more on the story, but the way they did it here was not to my liking overall. The references about sea animals felt mostly for the sake of it all and not like worthy additions that give the film depth and meaning. I don't even need an amount of depth that is so considerable that it goes down to the bottom of the sea (pun intended), but a little more would have been nice. The inclusion of a law or decision that no fish shall be eaten from now on was at best a clumsy attempt to put on display how he is growing closer to her. One thing that made things very strange on the other hand was the idea that the two were growing closer, but then all of a sudden we find out that the young man is about to be married to another woman. Of course. I mean, even if it is like this in Andersen's story, what they did here with all that was not good and they could/should have elaborated better on it all once more. I had a feeling honestly, probably because I really like the animated film, that it might be the sea witch in disguise, but the idea that the sea witch is not even evil did not even come to my mind. At least not at that point. I also struggled with the final quarter, i.e. the final fifteen minutes because this film, of course like most of the other recent German fairytale films, runs for minimally under an hour and to me it felt rather rushed all in all. The eing came relatively out of nowhere to me, which admittedly also could have been my fault because of course I was still waiting for a twist in which the other woman is somehow exposed as evil and the prince marries the title character. But this was different.
So overall, I give this movie a thumbs-down I would say. It is not bad, let alone terrible, but having seen quite a few of these films, probably more than half of all of them and that is a lot because they made many (and they almost always have their premiere before Christmas), I think there are many better ones out there. Definitely a bit of a pity overall in my opinion. I felt the magic was missing almost entirely here and the way they took this tale into a relatively modern world did not work as well as I would have liked it to be. I mean I don't need talking fish and crustaceans and I understand it is difficult to include these in live action films that also do not have the biggest budgets, but then they have to deliver in other fields and here they did not. There is probably not a single production value that truly won me over and (again a bit biased) I have never been huge on the Beckers, so they could not save the film for me either. I am still a little but surprised that I did not recognize them or anything, but the make-up was heavy. With Meret I wasn't too surprised, but Ben I know exactly what he looks like and remember having seen him in several other projects. Besides, speaking of the make-up, I was also a bit surprised by all the different hair colors. I already mentioned the mermaid's very light blonde hair, but for example the sea king also has a completely different color than the one in the Disney movie. Or Ursula / the sea witch as well. Sorry, I know I should not compare those anyway because the animated film is also an adaptation of course and not particularly close to the original. But it is one thing that this film here is not. Very entertaining, very sweet, very funny. With this one here, I was glad it was over fairly quickly. I have to dig deep for something I kinda liked. maybe the scenes in which the girl was not able to talk were okay, but there the prince and his buddies made up for it again on the negative end of the scale. Honestly they seemed like stome student fraternity. Nah, not good. Don't watch. Pity they slightly butchered this one because they only adapt it once (at least these ARD folks) and then move on to the next fairytale. This was definitely a missed opportunity.
Let's take a look at the cast next. Most of the time, they are using the formula that they picked rather unknown young actors for the roles of the protagonist(s) (princesses and princes) and the major supporting players are fairly famous grown-up actors. This is also the case here to some extent. Zoe Moore, however, who plays the title character is an actress who has been really prolific since way before 2013, so she is a face that many will recognize I assume. She is also a German actress which you may not have guessed from the name. Actually, she comes from my city, the German capital Berlin. Her male co-lead Philipp Danne here I am not familiar with at all though. Probably my loss if I see In aller Freundschaft, Tessa and Alarm für Cobra 11 being his defining career "achievements" so far. Not surprised at all. He seemed incredibly bland in this movie and was one key reason why I did not end up liking it. All about the hunky stature I suppose, but nothing beony that in terms of range or talent. Also really difficult this way to cheer for the protagonists to become a couple or something. It was already difficult enough because Maria Ehrich is an actress who I think is very stunning, so I may have liked the film more with her in the lead. And the hair color is not a problem either because Moore has almost always had darker hair than she wears in this movie, so Ehrich also could have gone blonde if necessary. The two big name actors here are of course Ben Becker and Meret Becker, who have a family reunion deep under the sea here and there is some relationship between those characters from past events that we do not know about that make it seem a bit interesting. Sadly the focus is never really on that at all. If we take a look at the Disney movie, they play the characters that we know as Triton and Ursula, even if those could not look any more different in terms of shape, size and (hair) color. I shall talk a bit about that in the next paragraph.
In general, you are doing alright if you do not expect the story from the Disney movie. This film here is highly different and probably way closer to the original tale by Andersen than to the movie. There are so many examples. Two key examples would be how the sea witch here is not evil or anything, but on the contrary, she fulfills the mermaid's wish, but the price that comes with it is none from which the witch can draw any advantage for hersellf or something. And the ending too. The prince gets married to another woman, but the mermaid still has some kind of success because, even if she did not the guy (she should be grateful as I already mentioned the bland actor), she is on the beginning of a long journey and about to experience everything from the world and not just the bottom of the sea. The sea witch accompanies her on the beginning of this journey. So there is definitely considerably less closure here compared to all the other relatively recent fairytale films. Actually, the ending was in a way where you could think that there might even be a sequel at some point. But of course, it did not happen. That would have been too much I suppose. It never happened with the other films, so not with this one here either and maybe it also would have lead everybody too far from the original. And completely aside from that, it was also a good choice because this film here simply was not good. The costumes and sets are alright most of the time, but this cannot make me forget about the mediocrity in terms of characters and acting and other aspects.
Of course, another thing you won't find here is the music. I mean you will find a soundtrack obviously because a film, especially one like this, without a soundtrack would be pretty strange, but yeah I still think they could have done better from that perspective and I don't need wild singing or a musical really. It's perfectly fine if they focus more on the story, but the way they did it here was not to my liking overall. The references about sea animals felt mostly for the sake of it all and not like worthy additions that give the film depth and meaning. I don't even need an amount of depth that is so considerable that it goes down to the bottom of the sea (pun intended), but a little more would have been nice. The inclusion of a law or decision that no fish shall be eaten from now on was at best a clumsy attempt to put on display how he is growing closer to her. One thing that made things very strange on the other hand was the idea that the two were growing closer, but then all of a sudden we find out that the young man is about to be married to another woman. Of course. I mean, even if it is like this in Andersen's story, what they did here with all that was not good and they could/should have elaborated better on it all once more. I had a feeling honestly, probably because I really like the animated film, that it might be the sea witch in disguise, but the idea that the sea witch is not even evil did not even come to my mind. At least not at that point. I also struggled with the final quarter, i.e. the final fifteen minutes because this film, of course like most of the other recent German fairytale films, runs for minimally under an hour and to me it felt rather rushed all in all. The eing came relatively out of nowhere to me, which admittedly also could have been my fault because of course I was still waiting for a twist in which the other woman is somehow exposed as evil and the prince marries the title character. But this was different.
So overall, I give this movie a thumbs-down I would say. It is not bad, let alone terrible, but having seen quite a few of these films, probably more than half of all of them and that is a lot because they made many (and they almost always have their premiere before Christmas), I think there are many better ones out there. Definitely a bit of a pity overall in my opinion. I felt the magic was missing almost entirely here and the way they took this tale into a relatively modern world did not work as well as I would have liked it to be. I mean I don't need talking fish and crustaceans and I understand it is difficult to include these in live action films that also do not have the biggest budgets, but then they have to deliver in other fields and here they did not. There is probably not a single production value that truly won me over and (again a bit biased) I have never been huge on the Beckers, so they could not save the film for me either. I am still a little but surprised that I did not recognize them or anything, but the make-up was heavy. With Meret I wasn't too surprised, but Ben I know exactly what he looks like and remember having seen him in several other projects. Besides, speaking of the make-up, I was also a bit surprised by all the different hair colors. I already mentioned the mermaid's very light blonde hair, but for example the sea king also has a completely different color than the one in the Disney movie. Or Ursula / the sea witch as well. Sorry, I know I should not compare those anyway because the animated film is also an adaptation of course and not particularly close to the original. But it is one thing that this film here is not. Very entertaining, very sweet, very funny. With this one here, I was glad it was over fairly quickly. I have to dig deep for something I kinda liked. maybe the scenes in which the girl was not able to talk were okay, but there the prince and his buddies made up for it again on the negative end of the scale. Honestly they seemed like stome student fraternity. Nah, not good. Don't watch. Pity they slightly butchered this one because they only adapt it once (at least these ARD folks) and then move on to the next fairytale. This was definitely a missed opportunity.
