Wunderschön - Trailer (German) HD2:28© Warner Bros. EntertainmentKaroline Herfurth in Wunderschönby Lisa Ludwig02/03/2022 - 09:30 am270Karoline Herfurth has shot a star-heavy feature film about beauty ideals and frustrated women with Wunderschön. The funny, feel-good drama has a dark twist, though.
In pop culture, there is always the term women's film, which always sounds somewhat derogatory. So a film made by and with women for other women. Either a cheesy rom-com or a biting comedy about the frustrations that accumulate in the supposedly average German woman when her partner never takes out the garbage and after the pregnancy she no longer wears the little black dress for them Company party fits.
Wonderful by Karoline Herfurth, which will be shown in German cinemas from February 3, 2022, falls short at first glance. Behind classic relationship chaos, entertainingly staged life crises and the denunciation of common ideals of beauty, however, hides a much darker topic.
That's what Karoline Herfurth's Beautiful is about
Nora Tschirner as a feminist art teacher is one of the highlights of BeautifulThe film shows five different women with very different perspectives on life, which one have in common: They fail because of the expectations placed on them. Be it from partners, society or yourself.
This is the cast of Beautiful:
The female main characters stumble entertainingly from one unpleasant situation to the next, repeatedly touching on topics that, especially for women and people read by women, should feel like they are straight out of their own lives . For better or for worse. So is Wunderschön the perfect mix of socially critical drama and typical German mainstream comedy for a relaxed movie night? Well...Wonderful is more of a horror film than a German mainstream comedy
The insecure Leyla is bullied at school because of her characterWonderful definitely works on this first, obvious level deliberately celebrated clichés and sometimes a little too hectic storylines for lots of laughs and fun, but beneath the surface a rather depressing truth simmers: you're either too fat or too thin. Not emancipated enough as a housewife or too employed to be a good mother. Either too loud or too quiet, too self-confident or too inconspicuous little mouse, too prudish or too promiscuous. As a woman, you can't do it right. And this hopeless fight almost kills one of the main characters.
Of course there are short-term ways out of the spiral of self-hatred or the frustration of trying to reconcile young children and a career while the husband prefers to flirt with the pretty colleague. You can talk about relationship problems. You can decide for yourself that you want to be more than just the outside.
Nevertheless, after 131 minutes running time I couldn't help but ask myself: how much feel-good happy ending can there really be here? And are the bubbly and the big garden party just a ploy to distract yourself from never wanting to stop screaming? So much for women's films are shallow fare. When your own life often feels like a hopeless horror film, every carefree punch line is a gift.
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Are you watching Beautiful in the cinema or are you waiting for the availability as a stream?
