Sadly Over-hyped

Overrated

Great Film overall

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

And romance of course (unless it's in one of the other categories already for you). This obviously being aimed primarily at women and romantic persons in general. While I guess it's nice to have strong female leads and the actors are trying their best, this is riddled with clichés from start to finish.Some work, some others don't. You also get glimpses of things and side stories that are not coherent enough or are left alone, although they might have landed on the cutting room floor. Whatever the case, the movie will only work, if you can live will all its flaws. And there are more than a couple of them. Maybe the charm of the actors will convince you otherwise, or some of the jokes in the script that actually work. There is no big story here other than .... love

"Traumfrauen" is one of the most known German films from last year. It runs for slightly under 110 minutes and was written by Anika Decker, writer of some of Til Schweiger's most known films. And it is also her first directorial effort. And I never thought I would say that, but looking at this film here the talent in her previous works probably all came from Schweiger. "Traumfrauen" can be considered the female equivalent to "Männerherzen" or probably really just the attempt of that. "Männerherzen" was a really good watch and this one here is a failure for the most part and only has very few interesting scenes.Lets take a look at the cast. Hannah Herzsprung is considered one of Germany's finest actresses from her generation, but I see hardly any talent in her, be it drama or comedy. Palina Rojinski easily manages the truly difficult task of looking even worse than a one-dimensional actress like Herzsprung. Iris Berben I have no idea why she is as famous as she is or do you remember the name of any internationally successful film she has been in or a film, in which she really delivered a memorable portrayal. Karoline Herfurth is the only one I can go easy on here. She is not great either, but miles ahead of her three co-stars in terms of range and charisma. The entire quartet really only scores through looks and not through talent.The male supporting cast includes a couple famous names as well, most of whom aren't better than their female equivalents. This has mostly to do with the script though and with how badly they were written. Berkel and Lau for example certainly have proved in the past that they have far more range than they are allowed to show us here. M'Barek not really, he is all charisma, zero range as well and was probably only included for that Herfurth reunion from FJG. All in all, it's an unrealistic gooey mess that tries to be touching, tries to have likable characters, tries to be funny and fails in all these areas while trying to take itself much more seriously as a romance than it has any right to. A failure from start to finish. Not recommended.

This movie tells the parallel love stories of three young women in Berlin: Hannah (Caroline Herfurth) is an unhappy attorney who sexually demeans herself in order to get at least some love and romance, Leni (Hanna Herzsprung) runs a coffee shop, has just been ditched by her longterm boyf, and ends up having to make up her mind whether she wants to pursue her dreamboat "Israeli singer/songwriter who now lives in New York" (Doron Amit) or the struggling actor Joseph (Elyas M'Barek). The third lovelorn chick, it-girl Vivienne (Palina Rojinski) ends up falling t over a in love with a puppy-eyed pasta designer with 21 dogs. To give the story a bit of depth and balance, Hannah's and Leni's mother also gets to butt in: she has been abandoned for a younger woman, and keeps looking for love in all the wrong places very much like the three girls.So the movie deals with three members of a family, plus an extra young woman with no blood relations to the trio. This odd setup is never really explained. In the press releases to the movie it was explained that the story starts with the mother (Margaux, played by Iris Berben) moving in with her daughters, but this never happens in the movie. I guess that practically all of the backstory ended up on the cutting room floor, which left the movie now consisting of a lose string of anecdotes.The acting is pretty uneven. Hannah Herzsprung delivers an amazing performance, I found her very convincing as the hapless gal who wins the heart of an international pop star, but who doesn't care and finds true love elsewhere instead. Very cheesy, it's but also dead charming how she describes herself as being "so out of touch with Berlin". Caroline Herfurth completely reprises her role in "Fack ju Göthe", even down to mannerisms such as bumping into something and moaning "Oh no" in a girlish voice. Sadly, she comes across as a one-bit actress here, although her role is an almost impossible one. Maybe someone should alert the scriptwriters to the fact that for a girl to randomly give out blowjobs, that stopped being funny back in the 1980ies. It's now officially sad. Equally left high and dry by the script is her "Fack ju Göhte" colleague Elyas M'Barek, who is left to having to mope a lot while looking devilishly attractive. Incidentally, much of the cast is first rate, pretty much everyone AND their sons is in it (I'm of course referring to Max von Thun and his son Friedrich).There is a charming but also very odd subplot: Joseph used to be a child actor who played "the boy who sold his laughter". This refers to the actor Thommy Ohrner and the TV miniseries "Timm Thaler". This was indeed a cultural phenomenon, but it took place in the late 1970ies, twenty years earlier than described in the movie. I doubt whether the film's core audience will catch that allusion.So overall, you get a lot for your money except maybe a coherent story line, but certainly a lot of gags and make-believe about meeting your dream prince and finding true love.