Traumfrauen (2015)

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.