Charlie & Louise - Das doppelte Lottchen (1994) User Reviews

Well done, succeeds where it counts

[Horst_In_Translation · 6/10 · 11 September 2017]

The 95-minute "Charlie & Louise - Das doppelte Lottchen" is a German film from 1994, so it will have its 25th anniversary in two years already and if you see how this came out less than 5 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, this shows you how old it is already. But despite the age, you will find many names still active in film today like Lauterbach and Harfouch, Zischler and Meyer. Director Vilsmaier, almost 80 now, still has a new project showing up here and there and even the Eichhorn Twins who play the title characters here seem to appear occasionally in television projects while other child actors from the early 1990s have long stopped acting. And you can feel the passion of everybody involved with this project. It is of course based on the famous Kästner story that even made it to Hollywood with the beautiful and talented Lindsay Lohan playing both characters. But here we have two actresses, identical twins in real life too and now in their mid-30s. On a trip to Scotland, the two accidentally meet and find out about each others existence realizing they look exactly alike. So they come up with a plan that the girl who lived with her father poses as the other girl and now lives with her mother and the other way around, which makes up for some pretty entertaining funny moments. Watch and learn folks, this is how you do mix-up comedies that are effective. The film's biggest strength is probably the heart as the authenticity and likable characters make it really easy to care for all the characters, not just the girls. You will probably see some flaws here from a subjective position like why does the girl with the shades does not recognize the other as her twin right away or why did they have to include this pseudo danger drama at the very end because it went so strongly against the film's overall soothing tone, but that's really just personal taste and it is also not bad enough to keep this from being a convincing work. It's a really good watch for everybody who likes kids films and it is a bit of a shame this underseen film is pretty difficult to find nowadays because it really tells a sweet story and also works very well not just from the family movie standpoint, but also from the comedy standpoint. It's close to greatness at times. One of Germany's best from 1994 without a doubt. See it.

Nice

[dkbs · 27 March 2005]

The story of Erich Kästner is transfered to the presence and some differences are added which obviously should reflect the society reality of contemporary Germany: Wheras in Kästner's story the father is a successful composer who lives in old fashioned prosperity and, and the mother is a modern and hard-working journalist who lives in more simple conditions, now it's the mother who is very successful whereas the father is unsuccessful as an composer and quite chaotic. Other differences: In Kästner's story and the earlier film the girls meet in Bavaria whereas nowadays it's more likely to send children to Scotland for vacation. The differences aren't obtrusive and seem reasonable - as opposed to the 2001remake of another Kästner story, Emil und die Detektive / Emil and the Detectives which tries to ingratiate itself with the nowadays audience in a very fashionable and superficial way. This one instead manages to keep faith to Kästner and the atmosphere he wanted to create then. Certainly it's a mainstream entertainment film, and it's not a great one (like some Astrid Lindgren films by Olle Hellbom) but entertaining it is and it's sometimes even quite moving indeed, the old story has some good turnarounds and ideas which don't spoil the original story and the actors are very good and take it seriously. All in all it's a nice film: 6 out of 10

Quite funny remake of Erich Kästner's "Das doppelte Lottchen"

[mape · 8/10 · 3 February 2001]

"Charlie & Louise" is a modern version about twin girls separated at birth and accidently stumbling upon each other - this time during a language course in Scotland. Of course, they don't like each other at first - that is, until they find out they're twins. As they want to get to know their respective other parent, what's the obvious result?

Although the storyline is rather old ("invented" by Erich Kästner in the 1950s), this film, playing in the 1990s, is still amusing and funny. Even touching at some points. Friederike and Floriane Eichhorn as Charlotte and Louise are acting rather well, a number of lines really make you laugh.

I can recommend this film to all people who like comedy/family movies. It's German only, however!