"Auf der anderen Seite ist das Gras viel grüner" is a German 100-minute movie from 2017 and the most recent filmmaking effort by Oscar-winning director Pepe Danquart, who is also part of the writing staff here, one of many who were in charge of adapting Kerstin Gier's novel for the screen here. Is it a coincidence that the male character with the most screen time is named Gier? Probably not, it is not that common a name here in Germany. Anyway, even he is just a supporting player in this film because the one and only lead here is Jessica Schwarz. I like her as an actress. Followed her since her early days as a VJ on German music television and I was glad took see she managed to pull off a successful acting career and still succeeds now that she is in her 40s. She may not have the very biggest range, but she has great recognition value and charisma and with the right script, she can make a difference. What we have here is definitely not the right script, but rather on the other end of the quality scale. It was a very bad film at times. This has partially to do with the cast. Talented actors like Juliane Köhler have almost no screen time at all, while horrible actors like Elena Uhlig, who clearly seems on the rise, are featured a lot in here. I have seen some films starring her in supporting roles in the last weeks and now only did she basically play the exact same character every time, which shows that she has no versatility, but she also played said one character pretty badly each and every time. She completely relies on the screenplay writers to come up with quality lines and dialogue for her. If they don't, she is 100% lost like in this movie here. You can basically say she is a dark-haired untalented Rebel Wilson and I am surprised myself I say that because I don't think Wilson is particularly talented, but next to Uhlig, she is a goddess.
Okay, there are really really many moments in this film that are bad and feel unauthentic. I must say I have not read the book this is based on, so not sure if the struggles are in the book already or just in the adaptation. But honestly, with how this turned out here I'd be baffled if the book was not at least on the weak side either, if not as horrible as the movie. One moment that was really bad was the scene with the urine drink. Another wasthe mailbox scene relatively close to the end already. Sadly, Schwarz also has her weak moments in here, such as her bathtub scene when she receives the call that her new boyfriend could be back sooner from the United States. Or basically the whole introduction with how the two meet, the piano scene etc. But most of all how Schwarz' character drives backwards with her car and crashes into all these bikes. Man come on, you cannot be serious with stuff like that. But let me elaborate on the overall plot a bit now: The first over 30 minutes are an introduction to the world and life of the protagonist. We find out about her relationship that has gone extremely south because the man focuses much more on work than on his significant other. Oh yeah, speaking of his work: Great idea that she takes her friend exactly to this practice if she wants to avoid him. The shades make things even worse. Way worse. So cringeworthy. And please don't tell me the reason is that she was already longing for him under the surface. That would be a very useless explanation. Anyway, as for the general premise: There is a very bizarre turn of events when the protagonist awakes in her younger self briefly before she met her man, so she has a chance to reconsider her life completely again and she gets a chance to make a different decision and, as a consequence, tries to avoid him and goes out with another man. Of course, thanks to this jump in time, other stuff is solved as well like one character not being able to get pregnant, an elderly lady dying (feel kinda bad for Judy Winter she has to appear in really bad films like this one here, now that she is in her 70s. It is just cringeworthy from beginning to end. Admittedly, this idea of time travelling was a real challenge to include in a convincing manner, but boy did they come short. With stuff like the protagonist talking to her esoteric female friend about what happened and hoping for help, they made all the wrong decisions. It was very clear we would not get an explanation why all this happened, but also aside from this crucial moment, it is a film that lacks attention to detail considerably. In short, the key story is bad. The minor plots are equally underwhelming and yet there the film acts as if it really takes itself seriously and as if it came up with a strong piece of art. The opposite is the case. Then again, this is not too surprising. Seeing how the likes of Uhlig, Roggan, Korittke and Peschel show up in here, some of them very briefly, you can already guess that what you get here is Schweighöfer material (Peschel is always with him) quality-wise and this is not meant as a compliment whatsoever. A definite contender for worst German theatrical release from 2017. Very bad film and I feel a bit bad for the writer of the book this is based on, unless she is happy with the outcome. Then she does not need my pity, but a lesson in what good movies look like. There is only one recommendation I can give when it comes to this full feature film: Definitely skip.
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