"Hilfe, meine Schwester kommt!" is a German television film from 2008, so this one is already considerably over a decade old and still, for some strange reason, it is shown on German national television. In the afternoon. Well, the reason is simple. It's basically free program for ARD and its smaller stations and let's not go into detail about the amount of money they made during these minimally under 1.5 hours while this film was showing today. The title means by the way "Help, my sister is coming!" as you may have guessed from the title of my review already. The director is Dirk Regel and looking at his body of work in over 20 years from the end of the 1990s until now in 2020, it is almost painful on the eyes. I see no talent there whatsoever, but it is kinda fitting to see when this film got made because this may actually have been the worst time in his career, even worse than all the other years. I mean the first ten years of the ne millennium. So seeing this man here in charge is almost a given to know that this film is not gonna turn out good. And that is the nicest way to put it really. And if you are still not convinced yet, then a look at the writer's name should do the trick. Martin Douven's filmography is just as bad as the director's. "Unter uns" is how he started his career, which could still be gorgiven as a bit of a childhood sin because he still wasn't even 30 there, but the truth is that in almost 25 years since then he has not improved one bit apparently and probably never will. As for the cast, you get some names here that have been in many ARD and/or Degeto films over the years. This also includes the lead actress. Jule Ronstedt's body of work is certainly nothing to be proud of, for which she is also at least partially responsible herself because she is not a versatile performer by any means. But can you really blame her? The ones really to blame are those who piack her to appear in these films. Especially as a lead. And as if she is not bad enough already, she even plays identical twins in this movie. And fails gloriously from beginning to end. But nobody should be really surprised because she normally cannot even pull off one role, so you can very well imagine what happens when she is facing a challenge like the one in here. And the audience members are of course also to blame, at least those who see something in her. Admittedly, everybody else from the cast was not exactly a revelation either needs to be said, but none of them had the material that Ronstedt did and as consequence also nobody had the degree of failure. My fellow German film buffs will definitely recognize one or the other cast member here. Charles Brauer of course from playing on "Tatort" next to Manfred Krug and he is really old now and back then, when this film got made, he was not considerably younger. Really in terms of females, there is nobody truly worth mentioning apart from Ronstedt, but there are truly many male supporting players. Fitz, Knüfken and Landuris are all three (maybe Landuris the least) the epitome of actors who appear in these really trashy television releases and God knows there are hundreds of them. If not thousands. Especially with Knüfken I watched another film today where he has a bigger hole than here and is terribly unwatchable, but let's not drift away from this one now, even if it does not really deserve the attention, but hey I am grateful for every person I can convince to not give this one a watch. Ceci Chuh is a cutie though, but I have to dig really deep here for something worth a positive mention. Still her unusually deep voice (for her age) needed a little while to get used to, especially because she did not have too many lines.
Okay, now a few words on the story and plot and references to scenes and moments that were especially terrible. First of all, the key story is absolutely unrealistic and complete nonsense. With that I am mostly talking about these moments when the two twins decide (without knowing the other decided the same) to switch roles. And of course it works out so well and nobody recognizes anything, which is complete nonsense and never would have gone this way in reality, especially because the two were this different. One all of a sudden with zero practice or experience manages to pull off a decent acting performance. Because she basically played who she really was and everybody else thought she was the other sister. Please don't tell me this is a valid explanation. And the other at the exact same time even managed to deliver a business meeting, presentation or whatever. In any case, also something she has never done before in her life. Audience members must be really simple to fall for this kind of stuff. By the way, there was also a priceless irony of them (with the first example) trying to tell us Ronstedt is an actress' actress. I don't even. Okay, what else? These films frequently have anti-male tendencies to appeal to female audiences. So does thhis one here. The central character is more in charge (or both of them I should say) and desirable than everybody else. One example early on, how this film says it is absolutely okay if women treat their men disrespectfully when we see how she just leaves after turning her (boy)friend on. And in the end, a male suitor has to forget immediately about how she fooled him when they spend a few hours together and has to be perfectly grateful because she wants him to fall in love with her. I mean these were not the most obvious moments and the anti-male tendencies are a bit more subtle here than in other movies, but they are still there and they are still nothing to be proud of. As for the drama, it also felt all fake basically. Just take the heart issues of Brauer's character towwards the end. While the kids are with him of course. And everybody is oh so in danger. Oh well, it is all solved quickly. The kids are safe, he just had some minor cardiac irregularities, but still enough apparently to lose his consciousness. Wonder what medical expertes say about that. By the way, they really messed up Brauer's story altogether, even if he was not featured that prominently in terms of screen time. He also has to crush on his doctor and beg for her to spend time with him, so we're back at the anti-male stuff with that. By the way, the actress who played said doctor was downright horrible with her line delivery. And what happens when they are at his place? That's right she knows that his wife died and she gives us all the details. This was a really good example by the way of how one can include information for the audience in the clumsiest manner possible in a conversation, namely with how the doctor really mentions all the details of the old woman's death. Honestly, it felt almost sadistic to me because it was obvious he still cares a lot for her. To an extent where it would have been appropriate for him to tell her he wants his potential new partner to leave. But hey, she's a female and he needs to be grateful for her to spend time with him at all, so she gets away with it without getting only one negative word. Alright, that really must be enough now. Also one more thing, namely it was kinda funny how the little boy, the protagonist's son, is literally constantly suffering in almost every scene he is on the screen. I mean it as not meannt in a funny way, but really as the opposite that we should feel sorry for him, but the writer's (and everybody else's) attempts to get emotion out of the audience is so uninspired and void of every kind of talent that the actual outcome was the exact opposite. This is one reason why you want to skip this movie for sure. One of many reasons. Don't get me wrong, this is not a film that is so bad it is funny or good again. It is bland from beginning to end and you wannt to stay far, far away from it for sure. Highly not recommended.
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