"Von Müttern und Töchtern" is a German television film from 2007, so this one is easily over a decade old now already and, depending on when you read my review, it may already have crossed the 15-year-mark. The title means "Of Mothers and Daughters", so a fairly general title, but not a bad title honestly. It is kind accurate because we have the protagonist in the mother role as well as in the daughter role here. sadly the elaboration of these connetions to your parent and child was really poor. The director is Olaf Kreinsen. He is a fairly experienced filmmaker and already was back in 2007 when he worked on these minimally under 1.5 hours. However, his body of work is also the epitome of quantity over quality really. There are very few inslusions in his filmography that I would even call remotely creative. Then again, he is not the one to blame for that, but those who keep picking him for their films. He turned 60 btw. this year and it seems as if he is still working. The writer is Edda Leesch. With all the bad you can say about Kreinsen's body of work, Leesch's is a completely different area of horrible. Every single inclusion is basically failure territory. Shocking indeed. This as her third film as a writer apparently, so she was not too experienced yet, but the rookie argument is not valid here because I think I have also seen some of her later stuff, more recent works and they were just as bad as these almost 1.5 hours. The most recent is from 2017, so we can only hope that she won't return to writing. The talent is not there. However, she has far more mentions as an actress than as a writer, even if there her most recent credit is even from 2015, so who knows which path she may be heading next. Retirement seems unlikely as she is still a couple years under 60. Not a big surprise that in this film we got here she also shows up as a supporting actress. No great material to her character though and that is probably a good thing because I did not have the impression she could have made it work. The way it actually turned out she is just there and that is it. The one and only lead actress here is Anna Loos and I think she is terrible and very untalented. In everything I have seen her in so far. You can see she really tries so hard, but the range and versatility are simply not there. Liefers (her significant other) may not be a great actor either, but he is not as bad as she is. He is also more about recognition value than about range and also when it comes to recognition value, he is clearly ahead of her. But let's not talk about him any further as he is of course not in this movie. Probably a good thing. Then again, the material is so low most of the time that perhaps he could have elevated it here and there. As for the supporting cast, we got some familiar faces here and there too. Not too many admittedly, but Löw (very similar name to the coach of the German soccer national team, also the first name) was in "Toni Erdmann" not too long ago. And Jannis Niewöhner has even turned into a bit of a star in the last decade, at least one of the most known faces from his group of rising young actors here in Germany. This was a truly early career effort from him. Kinda ironic that he is probably more known now than pretty much everybody else from the cast and that includes Luise Risch, who's pretty cute, but sadly did not manage a big breakthrough like the guy who plays her love interest here. There are more actors like Eitner and Weisgerber who have enjoyed long careers by now and still do not feel too familiar, even to German film buffs like myself. But the one thing (maybe only thing) about the cast you need to know here is that Loos is not worth it as she is basically as weak as Furtwängler and Neubauer und Thomalla, just, in contrast to the other two, a blonde and not nearly as prolific.
Now a few inclusion from the story that made it easy for me to say this is a terrible film. The one absolutely crucial factor is the key plot. I obviously do not mean that all of a sudden the protagonist's mother shows up and from that moment on lives with her daughter as if it was nothing. Or that the female protagonist is about to date her daughter's P.E. teacher. Or any of the other inclusions that all feel a bit random and unrealistic. What I am talking about is that we have a couple apparently close enough and in love enough with each other that they want to share an apartment as soon as possible. What happens next? The woman falls for another man. The guy falls for another woman. Both at the same time. And this other woman is actually the female protagonist's mother that he met without knowing who she is related to. Of course, for nonsense story purposes, the mother does not even know her daughter has a boyfriend, let alone that is is the one she is falling for. I don't even. I mean I could stop here and you would still know right away that this film is utterly stupid from the story perspective. But I won't. Because there is at least one area that needs elaboration. And that is the blatant sexism. It is something you find so many times with Degeto/Filmpool/Theaterkunst (or I should say Theater"kunst"). Abbsolutely shameful. Here they are not even trying to hide it. The woman is seeing another guy and with her it is justified because this other guy may be the right one for her. Of course, the guy constantly has to fight for her, do everything he can to win her over, accept permanent rejection, still keep going and all this while at the same time, she is not single. If a man does that, he would be utter scum. Garbage indeed. And this is how the guy she initially wants to move in with is depicted in this film. How dare he treat hid goddess like that. Absolutely unacceptable. So in the end, when they have broken up, he needs to show up with a big bouquet of roses to apologize to her mother. And she forgives him and the two become a couple too. Which kinda makes sense because the man is much older than Loos' character. I still felt that the gap between the two grown-up women (in terms of their looks) may be too small age-wise, but I see it is 23 years or so, so kinda accurate. Loos just looked older than she was. Or Weisgerber younger. Anyway, what I actually wanted to say is that Loos' character is not the one who has to show up with flowers, who has to apologize etc. The guy can be happy to get somebody like her. On another occasion we hear from her initial partner how beautiful and smart she is. Well, guess what? I disagree. Strongly. With the "beautiful" part at least. Of course, the "smart" part is also not really a revelation with how we see her on the way to her job in the very first scene and how she manages life nicely with her projects, her profession, her daughter etc. And later on of course how she is in charge of strong men at a construction site. But I'm drifting away. In this first scene, we also see the neighbor who wants to have a drink with her. Nothing romantic, he is like twice as old, but still, she is clearly in demand. By men. What an amazing woman! This is by the way the art of make-believe that is also supposed to tell us Loos is a talented actress. I can kinda see why many fell for it. But I applaud everybody who didn't. Anyway, as for the neighbor, his character seemed so pointless in the end. I had a feeling that maybe he could start dating the protagonist's mother, but for that he clearly was not good enough or the mother too exquisite. Sigh. Another blatant example of sexism: On one occasion, we have the mother say something like 90% of men are useless. Charming. If that had been included the other way around, then female rights advocates and white knights would have been up in arms about this film. If anybody had actually seen it. Luckily, not too many have and that is why it sunk basically into oblivion.Still, it is pretty shameful this mess is still shown on national television over a decade after its release. Big thumbs-down for that. And for everything else related to this movie, including the terrible soundtrack and the forced and unrealistic 100% happy ending. Anything positive to say here? Well, I thought it was funny when the protagonist thought that her daughter was kinda responsible for the old lady dating the protagonist's partner. But this was unintentional obviously. There is no good comedic writing to this movie. The best example was the inclusion of the two different first names from the unfaithful male. How did Loos' character not even know her man's second name. I mean they were about to move in together. Unreal stuff. Stay far, far away from this one.
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