The Book Prize of the Ravensburger Verlag, the Bavaria-2 public award, the Ulla Hahn autor award, the appointment as the favorite book of the independent-this is only a selection of the many awards that Caroline Wahl was able to accept for her debut novel “22 Rails”. You can only guess the emotional heights in which the then 28-year-old writer was catapulted through these euphoric reactions!
Such a groundbreaking success almost inevitably results in a consequence that many authors have already brought about sleep: If a book has been showered with prices and has inspired a large readership, it is very likely to be filmed at some point – which always means a bit to let go of its own literary creation. Caroline Wahl handed over “22 Lahnen” into the hands of screenwriter Elena Hell and director Mia Maariel Meyer (“Die Saat”)-and thus made the right decision: Because the cinema adaptation of the coming-of-age novel was not least successful thanks to an excellent leading actress!
Tilda (Luna Wedler) and her little sister Ida (Zoë Baier) are simply inseparable.
Working at the supermarket fund, lanes in the swimming pool, study, at the same time take care of her little sister Ida (Zoë Baier): Tildas (Luna Wedler) Everyday life is broken down to the last detail. But her alcoholic mother (Laura Tonke) keeps shaking the superficial order. While her friends have long since escaped the narrowing of the small town, Tilda has stayed.
When the chance of a doctoral center in Berlin opens up, Tilda is faced with a difficult decision: Can she leave her sister alone in order to build up a future? In this phase of inner tornness, she meets Viktor (Jannis Nomewöhner), who carries a painful part of her past with all hardness in the present …
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Even if the film runs again and again to rely a little too confidently on obvious psychological derivations, for example, if, for example, he puts Tilda's understandable but also dogged care in relation to the complete absence of parental supervision, director Meyer does not think of him primarily as a dreary social drama. Instead, “22 lanes” is characterized by a quiet, life -affirming gentleness, which results from the relationship between the sisters – the undisputed heart of the film adaptation.
In a particularly memorable scene symptomatic for the film, the two sing together the Tokyo Hotel hit “Through the Monsun”. Tilda begins, Ida is hesitant to come in until she finally intones the pathos-filled perseverance pop song with fervor on the open street. This is anything but subtle – and the symbolism of the lyrics for the trip of the two sisters should arrive even in the last row of the cinema. But that is exactly the strength of the film: it draws something real from the over -clear.
Tilda and Viktor (Jannis Niewöhner) come closer above the roofs of the small town.
This is due to the calm, observing staging. “22 lanes” sometimes acts like a string of snapshots and everyday impressions, which are consistently compressed dramaturgically. Meyer often relies on the power of the images: a single attitude that shows a jute bag, which is heavily filled with empty wine and schnapps bottles, is enough to understand why Tilda actually works like a single mother- although she is actually the older sister of Ida.
Above all, however, “22 lanes” obtains his touching truthfulness from the self-sacrificing-natural game by Luna Wedler. The Swiss woman, which has been one of the most striking actresses of her generation since “Blue My Mind”, has underpinned her valuable status within the German -language cinema landscape in recent years – and is now consistently solving this promise in “22 lanes”.
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With powerful physicality, Wedler covers an impressive range on the emotional keyboard-from impulsive fragility to clarified-brutal directness. All the injuries, the disappointment, the pent -up anger she spends in her game, discharge in a scene of memorable intensity when Tilda hurled her mother (also excellent: Laura Tonke) with cutting hardness: “You have never raised children, you just got them up.”
In contrast, the performance of 11-year-old Zoë Baier often drops quite a bit. The old -fashioned of her Ida may be understandable due to the living conditions, but the rustling of the script pages is almost continuously swinging into her performance. Jannis Niewöhner's Viktor also remains intangible and, in his stoic reservation, seems to be removed from the streaming sector to a Young adult format-the stereotype is the also-drawn but protective loner.
Conclusion: The catalog of topics for guilt, responsibility and self-determination may sound after the drama food. Due to the grand Luna Wedler and the atmospheric, attentive direction, the film adaptation of Caroline Wahls bestseller achieves a touching intensity. And there is still a Tokyo Hotel earworm!