I've never been so happy

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Movie
Original title I've never been so happy
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2009
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Alexander Adolph
script Alexander Adolph
production Ernst Ludwig Ganzert ,
Wolfgang Tumler
music Dieter Schleip
camera Jutta Pohlmann
cut Silke Botsch ,
Stephan Liepe (sound editing)
Christoph Oertel (sound design)
occupation

I've never been so happy is a socially critical film by Alexander Adolph from 2009 .

action

Frank Knöpfel tries to give the beautiful customer of a boutique a coat that she liked but does not want to afford as a present, but uses a credit card that does not belong to him. The police are notified, and since it wasn't the first time, Frank gets two years in prison. When they are dismounted, he looks for his brother Peter, who is living properly, and offers him to live with him. With the help of the probation officer, Frank gets a job in a cleaning crew. By chance, he meets the customer from the boutique again, on whom his insistence made an impression. She works under the name Tanja as a prostitute for the lovable and brutal puff mother Fritzi. Frank makes an impression on her again by refusing the offered sex and instead giving Tanja a necklace made of blue stones. Unfortunately, the chain belongs to his sister-in-law Marie, Fritzi senses trouble with a customer in love and sends her capelin, who accidentally brutally beat Peter up. Peter works in advertising for Schlickenrieder, the managing director of a politically liberal group. Frank now takes on the task of satisfying Schlickenrieder, which he succeeds in doing beyond measure thanks to imposture. At the same time, he steals advance rent payments for a penthouse apartment that does not belong to him, the owner of which, an international human rights activist, is staying in Russia, and thus gets the money to buy Tanja, who is allegedly heavily indebted to Fritzi, but impresses Loddel so much with his knowledge of Russian that they give him the money back on the assumption that he belongs to the Russian mafia. Standing on the terrace of the penthouse, Frank and Tanja, who is actually called Hannelore, are making plans for the future and Frank speaks the title line of the film while the police are already approaching below.

background

Alexander Adolph's feature film debut, who has already dealt extensively with the psychograms of fraudsters in the documentary Die Hochstapler , premiered in 2009 in the competition of the Max Ophüls Preis film festival. The film, produced by Eikon in coproduction with ZDF and in collaboration with ARTE Germany, was shown in German cinemas on April 9, 2009, where it reached around 30,000 visitors. Frank Knöpfel's initials should not coincide with those of Felix Krull by chance .

Reviews

  • “It would have been easy to treat these potential victims with malicious glee, but these supporting roles are far too vivid for that. This wealth in the secondary characters makes the film old-fashioned in a positive sense - as if it were a piece by Zuckmayer. At the same time, the feature film debutant upgrades his text with a razor-sharp look at the liberal Berlin of 2008. " Daniel Kothenschulte, Frankfurter Rundschau , April 9, 2009
  • “Adolph manages to limit himself to showing where others would psychologize. He shows the charm that sometimes makes Knöpfel appear as the modern Felix Krull and sometimes as the German version of Leonardo DiCaprio's character in “Catch Me If You Can”. He also shows Knöpfel's victims, who are often to blame for their gullibility, like his brother (Jörg Schüttauf), a stuffy softie. And he shows Tanja, the prostitute Knöpfel falls in love with. The whore and the gangster - this is a cheap movie fairy tale. But it becomes believable in Nadja Uhl's impressive game, in her stunned look with which she sees through Knöpfel's game. At some point she doesn't care. As you can see, true happiness can also lie in a lie. ” Rüdiger Suchsland, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 9, 2009
  • “Also the whore with the big heart and the crook with the little luck: They would be cliché if it weren't for the always charming Nadja Uhl and the particularly grandiose Devid Striesow in this role. They make these lost actors in life enjoyable to watch until the sweet and bitter end. I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO HAPPY praises truthfulness. The moral of morality sounds different: life is unbearable without lies. And certainly not without believing in them yourself. ” Jan Schulz-Ojala, Der Tagesspiegel , April 7, 2009

Awards

Dieter Schleip received the Film Music Prize at the Max Ophüls Film Festival in 2009 . For his portrayal of Frank Knöpfel, Devid Striesow was nominated for the German Film Prize in the category Best Acting Achievement: Male Leading Role. The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) awarded the film the title valuable .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for I've never been so happy . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2009 (PDF; test number: 116 915 K).
  2. ↑ I've never been so happy with the German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) , accessed on May 13, 2010