this little nice play by christian schumacher is a good example for german entertainment. there are no subplots or stories behind the main plot. not very entertaining. but christian schumacher as the director and the very likable protagonist stefan juergens did a very good job.
2 Reviews
Repulsive as always with Neubauer
Horst_In_Translation16 October 2020
Warning: Spoilers
"Männer sind zum Abgewöhnen" is a German television film from 2001, so this one will soon have its 20th anniversary. And I am not sure what is more revolting here. That this film got actually made and released or that they are still showing it on national television two decades later. It was on today I must add. The director of these under 1.5 hours was Christian Schumacher and looking at his imdb profile, it seems that his career ended almost immediately after the shooting of this film after he worked on "quality projects" like "Hinter Gittern" before. Good news. Writer Felix Huby, however, went on to work on screenplays for another decade after this one. He is in his 80s now and has been retired for a while. But his career that started in the early 1980s already (and still fairly late given his age) includes many, many projects of terrible quality. This film here is another (not so) welcome addition. This becomes obviously clear immediately when you see on the screen that this is a Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion distributed by ARD Degeto, so the two lowest-quality companies of German television cooperated here and the outcome is another embarrassing travesty. The sad thing is they are not even afraid to show like you see immediately at the start that Ziegler was a part of this one. Gross. And if you still never have heard of Ziegler and/or Degeto before, don't worry. The inclusion of lead actress Christine Neubauer, the worst German lead actress of all time, does the trick. She is as unbearable as always. Of course, also as always, they made her a bit younger and also made sure she got a male love interest in here that is also younger, even if not a lot. The latter is played by Stefan Jürgens. Well, what can I say about him. He was part of RTL Samstag Nacht, so I cannot be too harsh here, but still kinda sad to see him in films like this. He is not a superb actor or anything, but I still think he could do better, could have done better than to appear in these projects. Of course, next to Neubauer it is always easy to shine, especially if he has as much screen time as he does in here. He is almost an equal lead. Well, almost. Neubauer's star status must not be endangered. But yeah, he can obviously not save everything that is wrong with this film, but I think not even the most talented actor on the planet could have. Would have been interesting to see Daniel Day-Lewis play the part. Okay, I am drifting away now, sorry. Hehe. Jürgens' singing moment was nice though near the end. I will get to that and other story inclusions later on. Just gonna finish with the basics for now. The title also belongs there. This is so wrong. I mean most of the time, they even tried to get in a (not so) funny reference about the story or the protagonists' professions with these Degeto movies, but they apparently just said "who cares, we go full anti-male and get in the basic insult". If it was the other way around (and people actually saw this film), then female rights protesters would be up in arms and Neubauer would probably join them saying that as a prolific and experienced female actor, she cannot support this form of discrimination. Yeah well, here they just kept the title and all is fine. No words for that. Anti-male hate speech is also not rare at all in Regina Ziegler productions.
Okay, now let's move on to the story: Yes I have to. I don't want to, but I have to. It starts messy and unrealistic enough as the two leads meet at the cemetery and a minute later we find out they are neighbors, inherited the same place basically right next to each other. Yeah, right. That graveyard scene was already very telling too. We have Neubauer's character who genuinely mourns the death of her mother (who was of course also really likable as we find out) while Jürgens' says something like he is rather mad at his poor brother because he left him alone. Which is a bit of a stupid statement, but yeah well, it shows that men are always depicted as fools in these films. And Neubauer's character is the saint who managed to bring up three kids on her own, be as kind as it gets, now is about to start her own enterprise and she did that against all odds while the kids' father is on another continent and does not give them the love they need, but only show up here and there with big financial gifts that put his likable ex-partner in a difficult situation again like when he says she can pay for the girl's licence. As for the three girls in here, they also all have a talent with music (or think they do) and don't even get me started on the youngest girl coming up with a piece of music so good that it turns into a big hit success for Jürgens' character. As for these three younger actresses, only the oldest one is still in acting it seems. Probably a good choice, even if they could not really sink any lower than with a film like this. Good choice for the two who stopped I mean, even if admittedly the oldest resembled Neubauer so much that I was not sure if it could actually be her own daughter. Other than that, the usual with a Neubauer film. We do get a love story. Despite the title. And big, true love of course. The scene when they are outside and kiss for the first time is so cheesy and cringeworthy and the only thing worse than the dialogues there (and in general) is the music in this film. So much over the top. And don't even get me started about the noise we hear when the guy cannot hear something all of a sudden anymore. As if we were him. Also very charming from Neubauer's character, who is of course crafted with tools too obviously, to do something like that. But hey, she is nice enough to show up right afterwards with flowers at the hospital, so all is good. Like literally these two characters really have everything to them to become great enemies, really dislike each other, but nope, obviously they only care so much for each other to get this upset and it was clear since minute one that they become a couple. Still shaking my head at the scene when the two ramble about how they are both frustrated because they are single. He fell in love with her right at the cemetery as we find out in the end. I mean of course he did with an amazing woman like Neubauer. Or Neubauer's character. Also pay attention to how she leaves there although she is the one sitting on the bench. What a powerful woman! And there is no way she could bury or mourn her husband. These tears shall only be shed for other women. She is too much of an independent woman to cry so hard for a male. Typical Neubauer stuff. It is just all so embarrassing. Take for example how he crashes the door in the end. Oh, how cute and masculine. Or how Neubauer stands up in front of the crowd and talks about how he stole that song from her daughter. And so on and so on. One bad moment after the next and you can never be sure if it is only because it is so badly written or because it is so poorly acted. At least in Neubauer's case. Probably a mix of both. Also pretty embarrassing how they tried to put so much emphasis on how amazing the little girl is. How innocent (the angels reference), how smart, how talented etc. Felt bad for the child actress(es) to have parents that won't protect her/them from this mess. I could write a dozen other occasions during which this film sucked hard, but you get the message. It is as bad as the anti-male hate speech title implies and that sure needs a special kind of failure. It's all there in this one. Big thumbs-down. Highly not recommended.
Okay, now let's move on to the story: Yes I have to. I don't want to, but I have to. It starts messy and unrealistic enough as the two leads meet at the cemetery and a minute later we find out they are neighbors, inherited the same place basically right next to each other. Yeah, right. That graveyard scene was already very telling too. We have Neubauer's character who genuinely mourns the death of her mother (who was of course also really likable as we find out) while Jürgens' says something like he is rather mad at his poor brother because he left him alone. Which is a bit of a stupid statement, but yeah well, it shows that men are always depicted as fools in these films. And Neubauer's character is the saint who managed to bring up three kids on her own, be as kind as it gets, now is about to start her own enterprise and she did that against all odds while the kids' father is on another continent and does not give them the love they need, but only show up here and there with big financial gifts that put his likable ex-partner in a difficult situation again like when he says she can pay for the girl's licence. As for the three girls in here, they also all have a talent with music (or think they do) and don't even get me started on the youngest girl coming up with a piece of music so good that it turns into a big hit success for Jürgens' character. As for these three younger actresses, only the oldest one is still in acting it seems. Probably a good choice, even if they could not really sink any lower than with a film like this. Good choice for the two who stopped I mean, even if admittedly the oldest resembled Neubauer so much that I was not sure if it could actually be her own daughter. Other than that, the usual with a Neubauer film. We do get a love story. Despite the title. And big, true love of course. The scene when they are outside and kiss for the first time is so cheesy and cringeworthy and the only thing worse than the dialogues there (and in general) is the music in this film. So much over the top. And don't even get me started about the noise we hear when the guy cannot hear something all of a sudden anymore. As if we were him. Also very charming from Neubauer's character, who is of course crafted with tools too obviously, to do something like that. But hey, she is nice enough to show up right afterwards with flowers at the hospital, so all is good. Like literally these two characters really have everything to them to become great enemies, really dislike each other, but nope, obviously they only care so much for each other to get this upset and it was clear since minute one that they become a couple. Still shaking my head at the scene when the two ramble about how they are both frustrated because they are single. He fell in love with her right at the cemetery as we find out in the end. I mean of course he did with an amazing woman like Neubauer. Or Neubauer's character. Also pay attention to how she leaves there although she is the one sitting on the bench. What a powerful woman! And there is no way she could bury or mourn her husband. These tears shall only be shed for other women. She is too much of an independent woman to cry so hard for a male. Typical Neubauer stuff. It is just all so embarrassing. Take for example how he crashes the door in the end. Oh, how cute and masculine. Or how Neubauer stands up in front of the crowd and talks about how he stole that song from her daughter. And so on and so on. One bad moment after the next and you can never be sure if it is only because it is so badly written or because it is so poorly acted. At least in Neubauer's case. Probably a mix of both. Also pretty embarrassing how they tried to put so much emphasis on how amazing the little girl is. How innocent (the angels reference), how smart, how talented etc. Felt bad for the child actress(es) to have parents that won't protect her/them from this mess. I could write a dozen other occasions during which this film sucked hard, but you get the message. It is as bad as the anti-male hate speech title implies and that sure needs a special kind of failure. It's all there in this one. Big thumbs-down. Highly not recommended.
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