The award-nominated "Junges Licht" or "Young Light" is a German 2016 movie that is based on a novel and was directed by Adolf Winkelmann. He is also one of the writers here who adapted the original material. Interestingly enough, Winkelmann was born back in 1946, which says nothing too great about his parents giving him this name. But today we don't wanna talk about that. Winkelmann has been in film for half a century now and this one we got here was his first film in almost a decade again, so it may very well be back to retirement for him now and judging from the quality here, it is not too much of a pity. This was a really long film at over 2 hours in fact. The cast includes a handful actors that German film buffs will recognize, most of all Charly Hübner playing a miner in here. I personally really like him, but even he was underwhelming here. It is a good character study too rarely for the long duration and as a boy is in the story here, I at least hoped we could get a strong coming-of-age story. But no it all feels so much over the surface still, even if the film moves deep down the mines. The historic component with this film actually taking place back in the days when Winkelmann was a young man still was there, but never really elaborated on too well to make an impact from that perspective. And there were more than a few characters in here too that added virtually nothing for me. The bleakness is not the problem, but the film needs to deliver in other departments then and it did not really. A great deal of the contents really felt for the sake of it all, but never suck you in the story. Let me add that I have not read the book this is based on, so I am not a disgruntled reader here or anything. I cannot comment on parallels and differences between the base material and the movie. And still here and there the actors are good enough to elevate the mediorce material into something worth seeing, but definitely not as frequently as I would have hoped. It is not a failure, but certainly an example of too many cooks (screen writers) spoiling the broth as I cannot imagine the novel to be equally forgettable. I give these 125 a thumbs-down. Not recommended.
Review of Young Light
