Finally a widower
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Finally a widower |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2019 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Pia Strietmann |
| script | Martin Rauhaus |
| production | Doris Zander |
| music | Martina Eisenreich |
| camera | Florian Emmerich |
| cut | Sandy Saffeels |
| occupation | |
| |
Endlich Witwer is a German TV film from 2018 by Pia Strietmann with Joachim Król in the leading role. The comedy was first broadcast on ZDF on May 13, 2019 .
action
The artificial turf manufacturer Georg Weiser wants to announce to his wife that he wants to agree to her planned divorce, because after 30 years of marriage to finally be able to lead his own life seems hopeful to him. While he laboriously tries to communicate his decision to her and is surprised that he doesn't get an answer, he realizes that his wife Brigitte has just died. Even the funeral seems to be more of a liberation than a sad event for him. To the amazement of the mourners, he announced that the grave would be "planted" with artificial turf.
Weiser is determined to catch up on what he has not been allowed to do all these years because his wife was in charge at home. He treats himself to a refrigerator full of beer, a panorama TV and finally has some peace and quiet. He removes everything from the house that could remind him of his wife: the family photo on the wall, the carpets, the heavy couches. He is almost touched, however, when he finds a farewell letter from his wife in the freezer, where she informs him that she has cooked his favorite meal for him for goodbye and for the transition, as she was planning to leave the house. The first few days pass like this, and Georg hardly goes out of the house, only washes the bare essentials and no longer shaves. However, he sometimes goes to the office again, where he is actually not needed. His secretary says he should take a little more time for himself.
Georg doesn't really want much contact with his children. But that cannot be avoided, as his son Gerd insists on his inheritance share being paid out. He doesn't think very highly of his father, who as an entrepreneur never had time for his children. Daughter Susanne is holding back a little and wants to preserve the memory of her mother. She is also worried about her father's condition and helps him if he allows it. In order not to have to watch her parents and her father threatening to go into neglect, she places an advertisement for a domestic help. Her father is annoyed about how he grumbles against everything and nothing seems to suit him. He sends all applicants away unseen, but cannot initially counter the courageous Gisela Rückert. She just pushes into the house and starts cleaning. Nevertheless, he throws her out, which is finally too much for his daughter. She threatens her father to also sue for her compulsory portion if he doesn't apologize to Gisela and get her back. Georg gives in and lets his daughter drive him to Gisela. Here he begins to think when he sees the social environment in which the woman lives with her son. He feels like he has to help her so that she can make more of her life than just cleaning up. But at first she helps him and gets him to meet an old school friend and even go to a class reunion. Here he realizes that he somehow seems to be stuck in the endless loop of his everyday life. He succeeds in changing this with Gisela's help, for whom he gradually develops a fatherly care. He also has better access to her son when he learns that his father is no longer alive and that his mother has to deal with everything alone. However, he now has to listen to a few truths about himself that are difficult to process. Also from his children, who try to make it clear to him that he has ruined their family. The company was always more important to him, and he always reproached them for the fact that they would have been nothing without him and his money. He still resents his son today for not joining his company. However, Gerd's current job as a detective suits him well. He hires him to check out his cleaning lady’s new acquaintance. Gisela has forbidden him to interfere in her private affairs, as he also wishes, but Georg senses that the man is not what he claims to be. Working with his son brings the two back together. Georg is amazed at the professionalism with which Gerd goes to work. It actually turns out that the alleged nuclear physicist is only a caretaker and only wants to get women around with his scam.
Georg Weiser is gradually learning to find his way back into life thanks to his domestic help, who made it clear to him that this life is perhaps a little more complex than he would like to admit. He reconciles with his children and pays off a large part of their inheritance to both of them, since he has realized that they need the money now, not when he is dead. He cleans Brigitte's grave properly by removing the artificial turf and hiring a gardener to look after it. He sells his company and goes on tour with a motorhome.
"First you don't see what you have for years, then don't buckle up for a second what's left with you."
background
The shooting for Endlich Widwer took place under the working title Weiser from June 26 to July 28, 2017 in Berlin and the surrounding area. The scenes in and in front of the church were filmed in the Catholic Church of St. Nikolaus in Wittenau .
reception
Audience rating
The first broadcast of the comedy on May 13, 2019 on ZDF reached a respectable 7.40 million viewers and a market share of 14.9 percent.
The film was shown in 2019 at the Munich Film Festival, the Festival of German Films Ludwigshafen and the Biberacher Film Festival.
Reviews
Rainer Tittelbach from Tittelbach.tv rated: “Endlich Witwer” “is a character-driven comedy that German television rarely produces. The imaginatively staged tragic comedy [...] is much more complex than the usual Stinkstiefel comedies. The initial situation is bizarre. The mood is ambivalent. The main character, at first glance a philistine and boring man, is bizarre, contradicting, has rough edges and certainly potential; however, that got buried on the way through life. […] Król is always good, but has not had the opportunity to play so many nuances, tones and emotions for a long time: the way he does it is really great! "
At the Frankfurter Rundschau , Tilmann P. Gangloff wrote : “Such good fortunes are rare, but they do exist: Films that make you perfectly happy. Script, actors, image design, set: Even notorious complainers will have a hard time finding a fly in the ointment in this comedy. "
The editorial team of Tagesspiegel judged: “Joachim Król shines in the ZDF tragicomedy 'Endlich Witwer' as a misanthropist with obstinacy,” “a weird, encapsulated soloist. With his own note, Król gives the figure the mood and tone of a person who does not want to be wise and seals himself off from life from within. Who can play it so convincingly on their own - if not this actor? . "
Oliver Junge from the FAZ also rated it only positively: “The book by Martin Rauhaus is unusually subtle for a melancholy comedy, both in terms of surprising volts and open-ended storylines as well as in terms of the never-absurd dialogues. Pia Strietmann's direction, on the other hand, is not stingy with warm colors and warm-hearted ideas, which splendidly collide with Georg's exhibited, but of course only fear-based emotional coldness. She finds strong images for the main character's emotional uncertainty. "
Sidney Schering judged for quotenmeter.de : “Thanks to Król's entertaining and convincingly nasty game and the polished grumbling monologue,“ Endlich Witwer ”manages what some Stinkstiefel dramedies fail: The protagonist is credible as an obnoxious grumbler and yet appealing as the main character in the film . "" You ask yourself: 'Why doesn't that work more often !?' "
Web links
- Finally widower in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Finally widower at fernsehserien.de
- Finally a widower at crew united
- Finally widower official website of ZDF
Individual evidence
- ↑ Finally a widower at crew united . Retrieved January 20, 2020.
- ^ Church of St. Nikolaus in a ZDF television production with Joachim Król at st-franziskus-berlin.de, accessed on January 20, 2020.
- ^ A b Rainer Tittelbach : Joachim Król, Martin Rauhaus, Pia Strietmann. The (destructive) power of obstinacy at Tittelbach.tv , accessed on January 20, 2020.
- ^ Tilmann P. Gangloff : Everything in the green area at fr.de , accessed on January 20, 2020.
- ↑ Joachim Huber: “Endlich Witwer” - finally lonely at tagesspiegel.de , accessed on January 20, 2020.
- ↑ Oliver Junge: Now he has finally finished criticizing the film on faz.net , accessed on January 20, 2020.
- ↑ Sidney Schering: Finally a widower: You only know what you have when you no longer have it at quotenmeter.de , accessed on January 20, 2020.