In the coming-of-age drama “Missing*link“By director Michael Baumann (” Welcome to Habib “), puberty of optimism and parental uncertainty meet. It's about the summer of awakening – for the protagonist, which is about her 14th birthday, but also for her mother. With a fine feeling for intermediate tones and a playful ensemble, Baumann tells of the longing for freedom, of the breaking of family constructs and about the quiet power of a girl who tries to escape the confined of the adult world.
Between the hut settlement, the forest and the lake, a narrative of emotional friction points and laconic humor unfolds. The film is primarily supported by the impressive mother-duo Susanne Wolff (“Sisi & Ich”) and Luca Brüggemann, whose interaction is as intense as it is nuanced. The title “Link” consciously remains vague – an invisible thread that runs as a lack of link between childhood and adulthood, between mother and daughter through the film about alienation and the longing for connection.
Tine (Susanne Wolff) tries everything to somehow hold their patchwork family together on a summer vacation together.
Mia (Luca Brüggemann) spends the summer holidays in a hut settlement on the lake with their separate parents and their new partners. While the adults strive for a harmonious coexistence and Mother Tine (Susanne Wolff) only troubles the family together, Mia in the forest meets a mysterious boy (Paul Busche). There is a silent, intensive connection between the two, but the teenager guards a secret. Mia disappeared on the morning of her 14th birthday – and the already fragile family structure threatens to finally break apart …
At the center of the film is the 13-year-old Mia. She is played by the young debutantian Luca Brüggemann, who gives her figure a special, almost ethereal charisma. With her withdrawn presence and her often wordless game, she impressively asserts herself against a strong ensemble. Mia observed, withdraws, avoids conflicts. The sharp word battles of adults, the constant analysis of all emotion, she no longer wants to endure all of this. It evades where she can. Her mother Tine, played by Susanne Wolff, represents her powerful opposite pole: an overmother with compulsory control, but also inappropriate alpha woman. It is nerve -wracking, loud, pointed, always in the center of the event.
The search for wordless closeness
The holiday setting serves as a projection surface for family longings and unresolved conflicts. The adults stage a pseudo-idyllic patchwork with each other, which is more facade than lived closeness. When Mia disappears, the laboriously maintained structures stagger and with them the self -pictures of the parents. In these scenes in particular, Susanne Wolff brings out her acting class and gives the quick -tempered, verbally hurtful around striking Tine an enormous intensity between despair, anger and internal self -accusations.
The forest becomes a counter -world in Baumann's film, a space of the unexplained and the transition. Here Mia meets the stranger boy with whom she entered into a wordless connection. Their silent accomplice is in a strong contrast to the overload of the stimulus of family communication. There is a lot of talk, but little said. Even if Mia's family considers themselves open and keen to discuss, the topics they really move are consistently killed. Only in the encounter with the mysterious boy does mia find what she misses at home: a wordless closeness, an intuitive understanding. Their connection is intense, almost dreamlike.
Mia (Luca Brüggemann) and the strangers combine an almost wordless relationship.
When Mia immerses in the light -flooded forest with the stranger, Baumann creates a second, wordless level in which two young people meet without having to explain or evaluate. The forest thus becomes the place of the unspoken, to become a space between childhood and growing up. “Missing*Link” also subtly interferes with the different generations. Everyone searches for meaning and happiness and often fail to the same internal blockages.
This parallel tour makes the film psychologically convincing and emotionally complex. Baumann tells a coming-of-age story that also reflects the failure of the adults on their own expectations. Mia's perspective always remains central. It is not the desire for great rebellion, but rather the quiet desire for demarcation and autonomy.
Conclusion: “Missing*Link” is a sensitive, summer mother-daughter drama about the desire for self-determination and the speechlessness between the generations. Michael Baumann finds poetic pictures for the struggle for closeness and autonomy. The film convinces with its honest emotionality, strong acting performance and a feel for interpersonal dissonances.
We saw “Missing*Link” at the Munich Film Festival, where he celebrated his world premiere.