"Eine Frau für drei" is a German television film from 1989, so this one is over 30 years old already by now and actually it is an East German film because this was made relatively briefly before the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Of course, this film is in color. The direcctor is Jochen Thomas here and as his final projects are from 1991, this is from really close to the end of his career already. Then again, his career did not go for really long anyway as he started in 1972. This only refers to his filmmaking career though because in terms of acting, he already started two decades earlier, in the early 1950s. He has far more acting credits than filmmaking, so no surprise that with this one here he shows uup in front of the camera playing a supporting character, basically the only one who does not really have much of a romance story. The writer here is Alexander Kent. He was not nearly as prolific as Thomas, but his inclusion makes sense because Thomas almost never wrote the screenplays for his films himself. For Kent this was also from the later stages of his career, but not super late. His name sounds English by the way, but looking at his body of work, he is fully German because every single title is German in his filmography. This one here runs for 75 minutes only, so a pretty short movie this time, but nothing too unusual. If I am not mistaken, this running time of 75 minutes was not super uncommon in the GDR in terms of filmmaking. Certainly it happened much more often than in West Germany and mother countries too.
Before we get to the cast, it can be said that this film would also be suitable for a stage play. There are not too many characters in here and also not too man locations. Basically almost the entire film is set in apartment rooms with very few exception, like early on we have a protagonist go to the mail office and there are one or two other examples where the film leaves the apartment building. As you can see from the film here on imdb and how it does not even have the five required votings, also not after mine I believe, that are necessary for a rating, this is not a remotely famous film. I struggle a bit with the word film here anyway, even if it was obviously recorded on video, but in German they called it a "heiteres Fernsehspiel", which basically means "light television play" and it seems accurate and I mentioned already why it felt more of a stage play than a movie at times really. Also it can be said that most of the time we only had two characters per scene communicating. There were exception like with the three male family members on one occasion having an argument at the kitchen table, but even there it was mostly two character talking and the old man staying out of the conflict for the most part. Said old man is/was Herbert Köfer and he is hopefully having his 100th birthday these days and he is indeed still with us. This occasion is also the reason why this film was on tonight. The cast list is a bit confusing in terms of the order: Arno Wyzniewski should be first credit really, but he did not get lucky in terms of his life either because he died less than ten years after this film before his 60th birthday. So he was 50 when this got made and maybe it was just me, but I also did not feel as if he looked too healthy. Could all be in my mind though. May he rest in peace. The son is played by Alexander Heidenreich. Not too much to say about him. He turns 50 next year and hasn't acted in over 20 years now. Funnily, the son's love interest Carmen was pirtrayed by Mirjam Köfer and as you may guess from the name already, she is indeed Herbert's daughter, just not in this movie. A bit on the cute side though. Oh and Ursula Werner is in here. She is still fairly famous nowadays I would say, most of all because of her Dresen movie, but also because of the Kerkeling film for example. She sure managed a transition from GDR films to reunited Germany that was far more successful than almost everybody else's.
The comedy felt pretty bleak for the most part here to be honest. I don't think it is a genre that suits the GDR nicely and while fairytale films turned out a success here and there, these lighter films usually did not work too well. This one here is no exception. Luckily, it's also nowhere near failure territory, probably closer to three stars out of five than one star out of five, but for now I am going with two. The comedy in here has not aged too well I would say. The shenanigans in terms of romance complications and who could be with whom eventually are nothing that wasn't done in other films, but most of the time does not feel as bleak as it does here. Admittedly often as unrealistic. Köfer with his kinda funny and positive aura still managed to elevate the material at times, but let's be honest here, in order to make moments work comedically in which they talk about one character's alleged alcohol addiction, they need more talent than we get to witness here. And I am not really talking about the actors. More about the screenplay. Makes kinda sense that nobody outside of his family remembers Kent nowadays. One thing that personally confused me a bit was that the age gap between the two grown-up males in here may have been too small to believe they were father and son, especially because Köfer looked at least five years younger than he actually was and the man who played his son looked his age pretty much, maybe one or two years older. Realism in general did not feel like the greatest strength with this one. Fittingly with the small age gap, the age gap between the two men's potential love interests was minimal in fact, like under five years. So the consequence was that I did not really know which direction they would be heading romance-wise, but in the end it becomes obvious. Werner's character is for the younger man. But they had like zero chemistry or affection for each other before that, just skepticism and dislike (even if not fact-based). So difficult to believe.
One thing you can also look at here is how differently romance was perceived back then during times like those. Not only with the two I just mentioned probably getting together, but also how there is immediate talk about getting engaged. Okay, this was not country-based I guess. Or also how Werner's character then says something like how their kids are brother and sister almost if they get together and their kids shouldn't as a consequence. There is no blook relation though and today in the 2020s this would not be a problem at all. But maybe they were just joking anyway. Not entirely sure. Taking into account how the entire film is basically about the one who was married twice before trying to find a partner, he goes on really not too many dates. His father ends up on one that was meant for his son in fact. Or the woman from the mail office did also somehow like the protagonist or at least makes him a compliment. So it was kinda expected that eventually he would find somebody differently and not through traditional dating. I am sure this was not as much of a thing back then compared to what it is today. And let's not even get started on online dating when cell phones weren't even in existence back then. As for the more dramatic ideas, for example the old man's fear that he would turn into a fifth wheel if a woman shows up, I was not really convinced either. It neither works too well as comedy or drama film and the only reason to watch it is maybe for nostalgia purposes. By the way, the son also has his own romantic business as it turns into a bit of a scandal when we find out he was in bed with a girl his age. But just sleeping next to each other, maybe some hugging or cuddling and that is all. Let's not forget, this is the 80s in a socialist country. It was kinda funny though when one character said something along the lines of how he could turn the girl's mother into a grandmother. I am 99% sure this was not meant in a funny way intentionally, but it was. Maybe the most entertaining moment of the movie. I know I'm weird.
Okay, this is pretty much it then. As I stated earlier, I don't think this film is terrible or anything, but also not really that good and I have zero interest i think to ever watch it again. It probably won't be on anyway, or maybe once every ten years perhaps. I stated the special occasion why it was shown today and this was also only somewhere in a slot around midnight on a relatively small channel that has, in terms of the region, more of a connection with the GDR than the others. Still, it would not be horribly bad if it keeps getting shown because honestly, a lot of the stuff that is on nowadays, especially in the afternoon, is clearly lower on the quality scale. But this is really only because of how terrible these films are and not really because this one here is particularly good. I found it really difficult to create any excitement about anything in here and that is almost always a deal-breaker because how can a film be considered decent quality if I did not care one but about the characters. But as I said, I do not really blame the actors. The script is more to blame and also watching don't blame the director too much. Watching this, honestly I am pretty surprised to see that the one who played Krause here was the director. He sure did not put himself too much in the spotlight and I assume that's a good thing because I doubt his story would have been more interesting. By the way, pretty cool that Köfer is apparently able to play the violin as we see during the closing credits. That's really it now. The title proved incorrect. It's Three women for three, so they will certainly need a bigger apartment I guess. If these relationships hold. There's no sequel, so we won't find out. That's alright though. one film is really enough here. I give it a thumbs-down and negative recommendation unfortunately. Skip the watch this time and I am glad it was such a short movie.
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