"Ich liebe meine Familie, ehrlich" is a German television film from 1999, the old millennium still, so this one is already over 20 years old. The director is Stefan Lukschy, who seems retired now but as most other projects in his body of work seem as weak as this one here, it is probably not a bad thing. He was around the age of 50 when he made this one. Also at the age of 50 was writer Krystian Martinek, whose main profession is acting, so it should be no surprise to anybody that he is also seen in front of the camera in this movie. He is still acting nowadays by the way, which may not be too good because his body of work is on the same level as Lukschy's. Their movie here is based on a novel by Anna Johann. Apparently, this is the only book she wrote that got turned into a movie. I have not read said book, so I cannot say if the problem is the adaptation here or if the book is already as flawed as this movie. Maybe a mix of both. The cast includes more familiar faces than I expected though. Suzanne von Borsody was already pretty famous back then and same is definitely true about Rosemarie Fendel. Leonard Lansink is always nice to see for me because I kinda like "Wilsberg" and it was somewhat interesting to see him play an antagonist for once, even if admittedly the way they wrote him as an antagonist was just painfully bad. He still makes the most of it I suppose. The for me perhaps most interesting addition here is Wolke Hegenbarth and this film was made before she even starred in "Mein Leben & ich" for no less than ten years. Admittedly there is almost nothing to her character in this 1.5-hour film unfortunately, but it's still nice to see her during her younger years. There is just one scene when she basically hides her boyfriend from her mother and that was pretty cringeworthy, especially the reference about the t-shirt. The female protagonist (von Borsody) has no less than four children here in this film, but they are just there really. The other daughter gets a brief reference about how the mother has to talk with a teacher because the girl faked the mother's signature and that's it. The two smaller children, both boys, do not even get that. They could have been left out of the film completely and it would have been the same movie. Oh well they get to act scared towards the end when there is a little crime story.
This crime story was also the main reason why I thought this was not just a weak movie, but a bad movie. I mean the idea of the grandmother being a bit on the paranoid side with her comments about a killer on the loose were actually somewhat funny I won't deny that, but when she disappears and they actually turn this into a crime movie, still family-friendly obviously, it goes all kinds of wwrong, even if I liked the old man sitting there full of himself and telling SvB's character about how the old woman tried to kill him and instead killed herself. Of course, at the very same time the grandmother reappears. How realistic. Shake my head. That was just embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as the definitely weakest moment/sequence this film had to offer and I am talking about the balloon sequence here with the guy in charge of directing said balloon falls unconscious. Realism really wasn't the biggest strength of the writer(s) here. I mean you can include something like that, but you have to make it look credible and this certainly was not the case here. All for the sake of it. Same is true about the title character's romantic adventures. Her husband wants her back, her new romance wants a more serious relationship and the office's gigolo wants sex. Oh my, so embarrassing how they really want the audience to see von Borsody's character as the most desirable woman on the planet. Another prime example of how it all went wrong when they were trying to make a film about a strong female character. Only weak female characters will fall for that. By the way, the ending is also a joke. So she goes back to the husband who is the father of all her children? After he apparently cheated on her, after he keeps forgetting about important dates related to his kids etc. Embarrassing stuff. Yeah going back to him is really what a strong woman would do. And the evil evil boss who treats her so badly now after she refused to enter a serious relationship with him. Sigh. Oh well, I guess those people who believe anything about this movie also won't see the irony in my statement. Anyway, have you ever heard of periods of notice? Apparently the filmmakers here have not as their protagonist simply walks out of the building and she is gone and done with her job. So, overall you can definitely say this film is as bad as the title is cringeworthy. How she said these exact words at the very end was definitely not helping at all. The epitome of how they wanted us to like all the characters despite (or because of) their flaws because they are oh so normal. And as if their desperate attempt to depict the characters like that wasn't enough already, they also included it in the title. Oh well, maybe they realized their complete absence of talent won't make us understand said message throughout the movie and that is why they picked this title. In any case, it's a massive thumbs-down for me. Definitely among the very worst German movies of 1999. No clue why this is still shown on television. I guess Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion always finds away to being their garbage to the masses, no matter how much time has passed.
This crime story was also the main reason why I thought this was not just a weak movie, but a bad movie. I mean the idea of the grandmother being a bit on the paranoid side with her comments about a killer on the loose were actually somewhat funny I won't deny that, but when she disappears and they actually turn this into a crime movie, still family-friendly obviously, it goes all kinds of wwrong, even if I liked the old man sitting there full of himself and telling SvB's character about how the old woman tried to kill him and instead killed herself. Of course, at the very same time the grandmother reappears. How realistic. Shake my head. That was just embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as the definitely weakest moment/sequence this film had to offer and I am talking about the balloon sequence here with the guy in charge of directing said balloon falls unconscious. Realism really wasn't the biggest strength of the writer(s) here. I mean you can include something like that, but you have to make it look credible and this certainly was not the case here. All for the sake of it. Same is true about the title character's romantic adventures. Her husband wants her back, her new romance wants a more serious relationship and the office's gigolo wants sex. Oh my, so embarrassing how they really want the audience to see von Borsody's character as the most desirable woman on the planet. Another prime example of how it all went wrong when they were trying to make a film about a strong female character. Only weak female characters will fall for that. By the way, the ending is also a joke. So she goes back to the husband who is the father of all her children? After he apparently cheated on her, after he keeps forgetting about important dates related to his kids etc. Embarrassing stuff. Yeah going back to him is really what a strong woman would do. And the evil evil boss who treats her so badly now after she refused to enter a serious relationship with him. Sigh. Oh well, I guess those people who believe anything about this movie also won't see the irony in my statement. Anyway, have you ever heard of periods of notice? Apparently the filmmakers here have not as their protagonist simply walks out of the building and she is gone and done with her job. So, overall you can definitely say this film is as bad as the title is cringeworthy. How she said these exact words at the very end was definitely not helping at all. The epitome of how they wanted us to like all the characters despite (or because of) their flaws because they are oh so normal. And as if their desperate attempt to depict the characters like that wasn't enough already, they also included it in the title. Oh well, maybe they realized their complete absence of talent won't make us understand said message throughout the movie and that is why they picked this title. In any case, it's a massive thumbs-down for me. Definitely among the very worst German movies of 1999. No clue why this is still shown on television. I guess Regina Ziegler Filmproduktion always finds away to being their garbage to the masses, no matter how much time has passed.
