Katrin Sa� .... Christiane Kerner (as Kathrin Sass)
Chulpan Khamatova .... Lara
Maria Simon .... Ariane
Florian Lukas .... Denis
Directed by
Wolfgang Becker
Rater #2 has description and review.
Rater #1
Has Not Seen Movie
Rater #2
7/10. There are so many different plots that can be used for movies. Many
of them are quite funny, but fizzle soon throughout the movie. Others
have plots that sound funny but turn out not to really be comedies
themselves (see also: The Cooler). Good bye, Lenin! is one of the
latter. There haven't been that many movies based around the fall of
the Berlin Wall, nor the aftereffects of it.
Alex (Daniel Bruhl) is a young man living with his mother and sister
in East Germany shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He
protests against the communism as his proudly socialist mother
Christiane (Kathrin Sass) watched and promptly has a heart attack and
goes into a coma. Eight months later (which is after the Wall falls),
she wakes up, but any excitement will give her another heart attack
and kill her. In order to save his mother the shock of a capatalistic
government, Alex tries to make her believe that her country is still
communist by any means necessary.
The general concept of this is very intriguing-a concept that could
be bound for hilarity. It isn't, however. Instead, it goes onto a
completely different path, one that works pretty well. The lengths
that Alex goes to in able to keep his mother alive is pretty
extraordinary. However, making this movie into a drama obviously
leads to overdramatic acting, which is unfortunately what we get
here. However, Sass's acting (especially when she doesn't even speak)
is amazing. Good bye, Lenin! is a good movie when it doesn't try to
be overly dramatic.
