Zweimal Lebenslänglich (2015 TV Movie) User Reviews

The narrative and element of suspense make it work

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 21 February 2019]

"Zweimal Lebenslänglich", which means loosely translated "two life sentences", is a German television film from 2015, so it will soon have its 5th anniversary. It runs for 1.5 hours like basically 95% of German television films and the director is Johannes Fabrick, who also contributed in the creation of the script. This is the story of a woman, who seems to live a normal life with her husband until one day all of a sudden police enter their home and arrest the man for murdering a young woman. We are thrown into the conflice immediately. We do not find out about the man's relationship with the other woman, we are basically always during this film at the same amount knowledge that the central character (the wife) has. The latter is played by Julia Koschitz and I've liked her for a while, for many years actually, so good to see her here and I think she gives a good performance. German film fans will recognize other familiar faces like Klare, Kroymann, Giese, Roggan and Wittenborn, maybe others too, even if all of these really don't have a lot of screen time at all. It's all about Koschitz, not really about Klare either, even if he is the man who caused it all. The good thing in my opinion is while the question if he did it is above everything, it still manages to be a good character study and more about the question how Koschitz' character deals with it then just about the crime story. The sentence is spoken very early in the film too, maybe that was a weak moment with how sure everybody seemed that he would be acquitted. Did not feel too realistic. But could have been way worse. For xample we could have gotten a lone cowboy movie where the woman fights through the entire film against authorities and influential lawyers that her innocent husband would be released. We'd probably have seen Amft or Ferres in a film like that. Not Koschitz. Script and story are really fine here, especially comparing this film to most other rather weak German small screen movies, including the fairly horrible Tatort series that is still as bad today as it is long-running. Sure, not everything here feels right or realistic, but I personally liked how you could never be sure what would happen next and most of it felt right. If that includes the rape scene near the end is up for you to decide. It is kinda difficult for me to watch as a male audience member even. To me it came out of nowhere. I am also not too sure if the sexual reaction by the man struggling with getting hard was accurate. I'd rather have expected it to be over more qucikly, but yeah it is what it is. And these are really just minor moments. The ending may be a bit too bloated with said rape scene, the suicide and then finally the television report that indicates he is not guilty. But they sure did all they could with how he is depicted in the now and in the past for audiences to not really feel sorry for him, even if all this would never hape happened had they not convicted him. Oh well, you see what can destroy a life despite innocence. Then again, it is far from 100% clear if he is innocent. And I liked that. I could have done without the new murder mentioned at the end. However, it does not make the film worse, or at least not considerably worse. Go see it. Most likely you won't be disappointed.