"Meine Tochter, mein Leben", which means "My Daughter, my Life", is a German television film from 2006, so this one will have its 15th anniversary next year and maybe, depending on when you read my review, it happened already. It runs for 1.5 hours as they usually do and the director here is Bodo Fürneisen. He turned 70 this year and even if I am not against his recent fairytale career efforts, I must say it is probably a good thing he is not working anymore because there are many trashy movies to be found in his body of work. Exhibit A we got here. The screenplay is by Rodica Döhnert. Her body of work is about as bad as Fürneisen's, probably worse as she does not have the occasional alright project, but almost everything you find there for her was not good at all. She's a bit younger though, so maybe still working, even if also not active for a while. They originally went with "Töchter" as the title for this film here. "Daughters" is the meaning. So as basic as it gets, but as bad as the one they went for, even if for completely different reasons. "Daughters" would have implied something like they are likable, but difficult from a mother's perspective and there you already see exactly who this film is directed at in terms of audiences. The mothers, who only want the best for their kids and the kids do not realize. As for the actual really overly dramatic title, it sucks as well, even if it summarizes in a more convincing way what this film is about. I will get to that a little later. What I can say now is that this is a Regina Ziegler production, which is almost always a surefire guarantee for a movie to suck. Utterly pretentious and takes itself 100% seriously, while it has no justification from a creative and especially script perspective to do so. And if then the lead actress is played by Thekla Carola Wied who has played the same character for decades really and has zero range and versatility and has been in so many small screen releases over the year with basically each and every single one of those sucking, then there is no hope for this to even be a weak film. It is terrible film since minute one. The other title character is played by Chiara Schoras and I would like to say something positive about her, but fact is she is also an actress who is typical for these Regina Ziegler (ARD Degeto films), not much with her either in terms of the creative perspective. I could be a bit blinded and biased here because I think she is pretty gorgeous and has been especially back then when this film was made, but I shall stay neutral, even if she is exactly my type. And there we also have three male cast members in here who may seem familiar to German film buffs. Matthias Koeberlin is one who is fairly easy to recognize and identify usually, but I don't think he is too talented either. Timothy Peach certainly is not and don't even get me started on him playing a character named Dr. Seelbinder here. "Rote Rosen" material here honestly. And finally, Michael Mendl. He is the one I quoted in the title of my review. Well, I think he is generally alright, but maybe also it is just his likable aura that makes me say so because honestly the more I see from him, the more I realize that he has been in a lot of trash too and nobody forced him to accept roles like this one we got here.
Now a few words on the story and plot we got here and why I think this really sucked. The best example is the one I referenced already in the title. This is not "Erin Brockovich". It is pretty ironic because one male character tells the protagonist here that she is not Julia Roberts in this movie and what is so ironic is that they are really acting as if she was. What the character says is supposed to be wrong. Thid elderly lady takes on a really big enterprise who may have messed up and caused a great deal health damage to innocent people as a consequence, including her daughter. By the way, nice try to sell us Wied here as a woman in her mid50s. It is clear since minute one she is older. Anyway, all the drama linked to the daughter and her illness felt fake and for the sake of it. It is so bad to an extent that I felt it fairly nauseating, even offensive to people actually suffering from Multiple Sclerosis. I think it is absolutely essential that when they take on a subject like this, they have to be accurate, but it is so bad in here that I think it is just embarrassing. Also I kinda feel that it is a joke how medicine is depicted in here and certainly not a good joke, but the exact opposite. They had safe tests for MS back then and this is not Dr. House. This is just a really poor excuse for a movie that in the end wantzs us to believe that everything Wied did was correct. No matter how she would not let her daughter live her own life, no matter how absurd her theories may be, it all fits and applies later on. Well, the one thing that did not is how she thinks Koeberlin's character is not good for her, but hey there they simply jumped back and forth between her being really mad at him and her getting along with him fine because she could not be depicted as 100% against him all the time because the story had in mind that her daughter loves him and he is good for her. The consequence of that is the most ridiculous back and forth I just mentioned. What else? Oh yeah, the two lovebirds have their own struggles after two thirds or a little later, they are escalating too and we must be worried that they will not end up together. Or even be worried that the daughter could die. Well, I suppose the many simple audience members that regularly watch ARD and think they deliver quality were indeed worried. Of course, also in this films you cannot let the female protagonist stay single, no matter how much of an independent and self-confident woman she may be. This is again where Mendl comes into play and after he realized that she is indeed an elderly Brockovich, he is all of a sudden, right in time before the closing credits hit, also romantically interested in her. After all, it was her dedication, grit and fighting spirit that made him realize that he has succumbed to money. Oh my. It's so gooey and cringeworthy and impossible to take one bit seriously of how it wants to be taken seriously. All of it really. You can say in favor of the actors that no actor on this planet could havemade this mess work I thin, but also, like I said earlier, nobody forced the cast here to appear in this film and sometimes they even manage the impossible to make the script even worse than it already is. Especially TCW, who once again puts her simplicity fully on display here. Okay, that is all I suppose. There is more I could talk about like especially on the romance between the two younger characters and the rushed-in abortion plot for more pseudo drama, but I shall leave it at that. I just want to forget this terrible film as qucikly as possible. The key message in the end is really as almost always with Regina Ziegler, the woman are know-it-all queens and the men shall fight for them and be grateful if they are allowed to serve them and at least get loved back one tiny bit. And as for the health scandal story, it is also a travesty from the crime perspective (although it was never too dramatic there to leave the poor hearts alone, the poor hearts of the 60-year-olds watching this) like how the main character (the mother) finds the connection that explains it all and proves she was right. Sigh. Highly, highly not recommended. Abysmal movie, stay far, far away.
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