How to be unhappy (film)

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Movie
Original title Instructions for being unhappy
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2012
length 87 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Sherry Hormann
script Sherry Hormann
production Peter Herrmann
music Stéphane Moucha ,
Maurus Ronner
camera Wojciech Szepel
cut Sandy Saffeels ,
Clara Fabry
occupation

Instructions for Unhappiness is a German feature film from 2012 based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Paul Watzlawick . The main role is played by Johanna Wokalek . Iris Berben , Richy Müller and David Kross can also be seen in other roles . The script was written by Sherry Hormann , who also directed. It opened in theaters on November 29, 2012.

action

Tiffany Blechschmid is inconspicuous, a little superstitious, and single. Although her delicatessen shop has homemade fortune cookies , she deeply distrusts luck herself, as every success in her life has been followed by a catastrophe. Tiffany just always gets in her own way with her negative thoughts. One day Hans Luboschinski, a famous pianist, moves in across from the deli. Tiffany and her employees are watching what is going on as the grand piano cracks with a roar. Luboschinski appears immediately to see if nothing has happened to anyone else, when Tiffany recognizes him as her childhood piano teacher. This immediately brings back memories of old times in her, so even as a child she had the impression that everyone else was always better than her. Nevertheless, she has set up her own shop, and when Luboschinski buys a little something and does not seem to recognize it after twenty years, she is convinced, as it was then, that she is just average and one does not remember.

However, she has the impression that the Roma who beg for alms in the street is a good sign; that he survived the war must be lucky. Policeman Frank speaks to her promptly in the evening and wants to meet her. He sees her as a princess, but reality (in the form of her late mother) catches up with her very quickly. This appears to her at night in her dreams to speak to her conscience. So she always wanted to raise her daughter as a vegetarian and didn't agree when she opened a deli. But her mother also accompanies her in daydreams, appearing to her at the most inopportune moments and tormenting her with her advice.

The next day, Hans Luboschinski is a guest in the deli. Tiffany is astonished to find that he has recognized her after all. He compliments her and encourages her to play the piano again, but she immediately remembers her authoritarian mother.

That evening she made an appointment to have dinner with the policeman Frank, who made serious advances for her. But he also talks a lot about his work, sees potential crimes everywhere and annoys with his exaggerated security thinking. After her rendezvous, Tiffany goes back to her apartment alone.

The next day, the young photographer Thomas Paulson arouses her interest when he happens to come into the shop. In order not to have to give in to her feelings, she treats him quite dismissively, but that doesn't prevent him from inviting her to dinner in the evening. But she has to refuse him because she has already arranged to meet Frank, whom she is taking with her into the apartment this time. However, she cannot enjoy the intimacies because her mother appears to her again and continually intervenes. So the evening ends unsatisfactorily for both of them, and Frank leaves the apartment after Tiffany, referring to her mother, says out loud: "Get out of my life at last."

The next day Thomas Paulson is back at the deli and complains that Tiffany is in such a bad mood that it would not suit such a beautiful woman. But she doesn't go into it any further, and Thomas goes back to his photo studio without having achieved anything. Unexpectedly, Tiffany starts talking to her new neighbor. This turns out to be very profound, because Luboschinski obviously has bigger problems. Tiffany's landlord Paul prevented him from attempting suicide. He confesses to her that he didn't move back near her by accident. He had hoped to meet Tiffany's mother again after years in America, and is badly hit when he learns that she has been dead for three years. He had a relationship with Tiffany's mother and had always hoped in vain that she would leave her husband for him.

But even Tiffany has to take another blow of fate, because the policeman Frank accidentally shot himself while cleaning his pistol. So she blames herself that it could have been that messed up evening. Again, Tiffany is convinced that she is magically attracted to misfortune. But she also becomes anew aware of the finiteness of life. So she is finally ready to forgive her father, whom she has not seen for years. When she visits him, they speak out. She always blamed him for leaving her and her mother years ago. Now that she knows that her mother was the one who couldn't be faithful, she is finally seeing things from their right side. She suddenly manages to see the positive things and is delighted when the Roma reappears in front of her deli after being gone for days.

Full of vigor, she throws herself into work in a happy mood and bakes new fortune cookies again. When the photographer Thomas Paulson orders a large cake in her shop, she brings it to him personally. She keeps talking and Thomas just listens. So in the end she stumbles upon the very great happiness. And that she is happy can be heard by her employees and guests in the shop when she makes her piano sound with emotion and exhilaration. She is no longer single and is finally looking at life from the right direction and no longer from behind.

production

The shooting took place from the end of June to the beginning of August 2011, mainly in the Babelsberg studio in Potsdam . So Tiffany Blechschmids delicatessen, a corner store in Berlin, with kitchen, dining room and street crossing was built in the Marlene-Dietrich-Halle on the studio premises. In addition to the deli, there are also the apartments of Tiffany, her neighbor and those of her parents in the Tonkreuz. Some outdoor shots were taken in Berlin-Kreuzberg (Fidicinstrasse) and North Rhine-Westphalia ( Cologne , Hürth , Bergisch Gladbach ).

How to be unhappy is a production by Desert Flower Filmproduktion, produced by Peter Herrmann. The film was made in co-production with ARD-Degeto, Bayerischer Rundfunk and Studio Babelsberg / 8. Babelsberg Film GmbH, BA Produktion GmbH, MTM west television & film GmbH and Studiocanal Film GmbH, supported by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW , Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg , FilmFernsehFonds Bayern , Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), the German Film Funding Fund (DFFF) and the BKM. Furthermore, Instructions for Unhappiness was produced with the support of the Bavarian Film Prize after Wüstenblume , the first collaboration between producer Peter Herrmann and Sherry Hormann, won the producer prize of the Bavarian Film Prize in 2009.

The film was funded with 2.2 million euros. Almost 25,000 visitors saw him in the opening week. According to the FFA, the production achieved box office earnings of € 557,189 with an audience of 80,044 visitors.

Book template

The 1983 non-fiction book Instructions for Unhappiness by the Austrian psychologist Paul Watzlawick is at first glance a kind of anti-advisor that gives "recommendations" on the question of how to make your life unbearable. However, in reality one can (and should) read the book against the grain: By trying to get rid of the behavior and attitudes “recommended” in the book, the reader can reduce the extent of the perceived unhappiness.

Sherry Hormann sees the film, among other things, as a declaration of love for life, "because we can only feel happiness when we also know the misfortune." The expansion of happiness arises when you have the courage to look at your fears.

Movie reviews

“Aviva-Berlin”, an online magazine for women, praises the film exuberantly: “A lovable, entertaining and funny film with an impressive line-up of great German actors. A kind of 'Fabulous World of Tiffany' in Berlin, in which the viewers shouldn't expect great psychological depth, but leave the cinema with the invitation to be happy. "

The majority of the critics consider the film to be mediocre. So disturbs z. B. Walli Müller the "fortune cookie level" of the film. If one accepts this, then it applies that fortune cookies, "golden wrapped", "can also be fun".

Sophie Charlotte Rieger is disappointed with the Watzlawick film: “The filming of the paradoxical advice guide on how to be unhappy can convey a large part of the life-negating attitude of the original. Unfortunately, director Sherry Hormann does not succeed in adopting Paul Watzlawick's irony. But it is precisely this ironic distance that not only gives the book its wit, but also enables the reader to recognize himself with a smile. Without the irony, instructions on unhappiness fit perfectly into the self-image of the main character: mediocre and without great recognition value. "

Peter Zander delivers a total dismantling: According to him, there is no “residual risk that the film will somehow run anyway, that it could still be a success in the end”, given the multitude of mistakes for which the filmmakers were responsible.

The women's online magazine “erdbeerlounge” writes: “The cult book from the 1980s has now been filmed by comedy expert Sherry Hormann ( Irren is male ) with a star cast. [...] Instructions for being unhappy is an ensemble film that convinces through the acting performances of the actors. [...] The result is a feather-light comedy full of melancholy moments about the happiness and sorrow of love, which promises all the unlucky ones hope for a better future. "

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for instructions on unhappiness . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2012 (PDF; test number: 134 433 K).
  2. ↑ Studio Babelsberg Facebook Chronicle: Instructions for unhappiness .
  3. ^ PNN: Mother's advice about studio buildings .
  4. ↑ PNN: Mother's Advice - Love Comedy Last Act: Iris Berben and Johanna Wokalek shot in Babelsberg for their new movie Potsdamer Latest News from July 16, 2011, accessed on February 10, 2017
  5. ↑ wallstreet-online.de: Glücklich in Babelsberg - shooting of ´INSTRUCTIONS FOR UNGLÜCKLICHSEIN´ wallstreet-online.de from June 23, 2011, accessed on February 10, 2017
  6. ^ Adrian Prechtel / Florian Koch: Film flops in Germany: A lost year . Evening newspaper Munich, December 5, 2012
  7. ↑ kino.de: Instructions for being unhappy, film plot & background .
  8. ↑ Videopoint Mainz: Instructions for being unhappy  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.videopoint-mainz.de  
  9. ↑ Interview with Sherry Hormann, Iris Berben and Johanna Wokalek in the Badische Zeitung: “Happiness takes place in us” .
  10. ↑ Martina Wittneben: Instructions for being unhappy . AVIVA-Berlin .de, June 25, 2012
  11. ^ Walli Müller: Instructions for being unhappy ( Memento from December 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). NDR, November 28, 2012
  12. ↑ Sophie Charlotte Rieger: "Instructions for being unhappy" - largely free of irony . Cinema time, November 29, 2012
  13. ↑ Peter Zander: How to turn a world bestseller into a film that couldn't be happier . Berliner Morgenpost, November 28, 2012
  14. ↑ desired.de: In the cinema: Instructions for being unhappy .