"Herzdamen" (difficult to translate with the cars game reference, by the way no card game references in this film, so the title is also nonsense) is a German television film that premiered back in 2006, so this one will have its 15th anniversary next year. Or maybe it is already over 15 years old depending on when you read my review. One thing that is safe though is that no matter if you saw it right after its release back then or if you will see it another 15 years from now: This has been, is and will always be a really poor movie quality-wise. But firstg things first: The director of these 1.5 hours is Karola Hattop and she started working in the industry in the early 1970s and it seems she is still active today, so not too far from the 50th anniversary of her career. However, as far as I am concerned, this is nothing to be proud of or celebrate. Her body of work includes so many terrible projects. This is not the only film from her that I have seen and almost everything I've seen was cringeworthily bad. So be warned when you see her name on a movie. The writer is Cornelia Willinger. Not as prolific as Hattop, but her body of work also includes many projects that are not good gently-speaking. And it is a very Bavarian body of work which surprises me a bit because she originates from Saxony. But yeah, she really made the most of the German Reunification with how otherwise it would not have worked this way. Maybe not the worst trend to imagine looking at how horrible the screenplay is. Now, I have seen another film not too long ago that focuses on three elderly women struggling with males and how they treat them, but while that one was also pretty bad, at least it had somewhat known names for the three key characters. Dohm for example, although she is a pretty bad actress too. The only one somwhat known name here is Thekla Carola Wied and like everybody else, she has also appeared in many movies that really low on the quality scale. But the other two are not famous at all and I am saying this as a German film buff, who really knows many many German actors and actresses. However, the script is so pathetic that not even more known actresses would have made it work. Probably not even Hollywood's finest, not that they would want to get anywhere near this mess we have here.
Wied's character is cheated on by her husband and not for the first time, so she goes on a journey with two other women. The husband, by the way, realizes of course how amazing his wife is and tries to get her back. He is a sleazy pig of course and lures her up to a hotel room, but "thank God" Wied's characted sees right through it all and does not come back to him again. Oh how emancipated she is. As for the other two, one is a judge and she finds a new man towards the end of the movie as well. Her introduction was one of the most cringeworthy moments of the movie as we hear a sentence out of her mouth where she gives a severe punishment to a man (of course) and basically jokes around with a specific insult that the female is not allowed to throw anymore at the male. Criinge is real. Also how she laughed while giving her judgment. Talk about a character ruined since second one really. And the third woman is one who is always the affair that evil, evil men have while being married, but they never leave their wives for her. Oookay, so what happens with her? She also find a new love interest towards the end of the movie, the father of a girl, but I will get to that girl later and what is her role in this film. As for the third woman, of course she acts really distant towards her suitor, even if for once he is not a married man, he seems to genuinely like her, but hey all of a sudden the otherwise shy and insecure woman is very self-confident and plays hard to get. What a powerful woman! Okay, as for the girl: While running from/towards the men in their lives, out three heroines also get in touch with a girl. She likes out likeable heroines so much that she gives them almost 500 bucks to fulfill their dreams. Daddy must be happy what the girl is doing with her savings, but hey our three angels deserve it. And not much later we find out that the girl falls unconscious and of course our three pigs errrr. ladies find her and save her life by calling the ambulance. And the poor girl has bone marrow cancer of course. Talk about pseudo drama for the sake of it (for once, no irony) and the third woman eventually acts as a donor to save the girl's life. Sigh. Enough with that. Oh by the way, before the women leave early on and take some time for themselves, we find out that one randomly inherited a little castle next to one of Germany's biggest rivers. But of course her evil evil husband wants her to come back to him and if she doesn't, he is not only ready to block her from taking money from their bank account, but even ready to take the castle away from her, although it rightfully belongs to her. How mean! This bad, bad man! But hey, as people inherit castles randomly in this movie just like it happens in real life too, maybe one of the other two women gets lucky as well. Okay, that's all I have to say about this film. Thes worst is really how it takes itself so seriously all the time as if it was telling an authentic story. What a joke and not a good one. Oh wait, another cringeworthy moment is when one of the three ladies compared herself to Sissi or though. Are you kidding me? The melodramatic soundtrack from beginning to end is also not helping by the way. No less than seven years later they made a second film (in 2013, same writer and different director) and I watched that one five years ago or so and I am surprised to see I have it four stars out of ten. I can absolutely not imagine how a sequel to this one here can be anything other than complete trash. Oh well, I guess I went really easy on that one back then. All I can say about this one here is that it is truly and abomination and I genuinely hope that with the seven-year gap, they will not release a third film now in 2020 because honestly this one here was already one too many. Skip under any circumstance!
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