While I did not like this film as much as i hoped I would, I would like to emphasized Ulrich Noethen's convincing work here. He plays Pettersson, the owner of the cat, and his role was a particularly challenging one as he had to act all the scenes without the animated character of Findus that was edited into the movie later on. Not once did you gain the impression that Noethen was acting towards air and that is quite an achievement. Maybe you saw Noethen ("Der Untergang") in the Sams movies and here he has to deal with another strange creature that can actually speak.
Unfortunately I was not too fond of Findus. Finally it was all a story about a fox and about a noisy cock that needed saving from ending up in the cooking pot. Marianne Sägebrecht's (Out of Rosenheim) turn here is really forgettable. She contributes nothing to the film except being the one who gives Findus to Pettersson against his loneliness and later on the cock to Pettersson because she simply is too annoyed by the noise although she won't admit it. Another highlight of the film is Gustafsson. Max Herbrechter is an experienced television actor and here he shows that he can hold his own against prolific cinema actors too.
Unfortunately, it is really only a movie for children. Maybe that is also why the aspect of Pettersson's loneliness is not really examined any further. It is a huge jump for director Ali Samadi Ahadi, who, as you may have already guessed from his name, has primarily worked on movies that had some kind of connection and plot related to the Middle East.
The stories of Pettersson and Findus originally come from Swedish children's book and there already exist Swedish animated movies about them and now the wave has swept over to Germany for a live action movie. The result, unfortunately, leaves a bit desired. No surprise it swept over here though as there's new children's movies with established actors coming out here in Germany on a regular basis. Most are better than Pettersson and Findus and I would also recommend them to grown-up audiences.
