Films about mental disorders and with mentally ill figures always require a particular sensitivity on the part of the makers – especially in comedies. Are mental problems and topics such as suicide and essential life crises components of comedies? Can you laugh at mentally ill? The answers to these questions are very clear: Yes, as long as you do not reveal the actors to the ridiculousness and, with all the wit, you can also highlight the complex background stories of those affected with the necessary seriousness. After all, a lot of humor makes a lot easier in life, and this can be transferred to the coping with mental illnesses. True to the motto: the depression and the triggers laugh cheekily in the face! After all, humor and laughter strengthen mental health and can bring the inner sensitivities that have been from the solder back into balance. And if it is only for a short time …
Katharina (Lea Drinda), Ricky (Safinaz Sattar), Victoria (Sonja Weißer) and Malou (Zoe Stein) are also looking for mental stability. You are the four main characters of the remarkable directorial resident in a supervised residential group “thanks for nothing” by the Berliner Stella Marie Markert. The producer and filmmaker succeeds with her carefree mix of coming-of-age, big city ballad and tragicomedy (with a focus on comedy) one of the best debut this year! A pleasantly casual film that convinces with a relaxed narrative style and very, a lot of affection for his characters.
Even if life does not always make it easy for them: together Katharina, Ricky, Victoria and Malou are somehow.
Katharina, Ricky, Victoria and Malou are representatives of the gene Z and live together in a supervised residential group in Berlin's Prenzlberg. There they created their own anarchic system away from the adult world. A counter -proposal to everything you reject: parents, school, social norms, rules of all kinds. With your social worker Ballack (Jan Bülow) as a half -hearted watcher, you actually get through everyday life quite well. However, the self -chosen order gradually falter when the individual problems and needs of the four are increasingly colliding and seeming incompatible.
The protagonists, who are part of this social residential project for young people, quickly grow. There is Malou, who hired speaking at the age of five. Nobody really noticed that it is actually gifted. The emotionally unstable, long -term melancholy Katharina actually never wanted to grow up and successfully commit suicide until the 18th birthday. For them, death is, as it is smugly called, the “state of absolute perfection” to be striving for. Now she will be of legal age in two weeks – and her “goal of life” threatens to fail. The queere, unadjusted Ricky, in turn, has lived in Germany since she was 13 and has to digest the news that her residence status is endangered. And then there would be the bipolar, eccentric Victoria, a prime example of the wealth of wealth and always looking for attention and confirmation – mostly in the form of fleeting affairs and superficial flirts.
Written off from society?
Despite the severity of the topics- and although Katharina, Ricky, Victoria and Malou sometimes perceive their lives as badly consolation and directional drifts- offers “thanks for nothing” a pleasantly light, natural visual experience. This is primarily due to the fantastic, authentically playing cast. Together (or if necessary also) the four young people try to somehow beat through life and get through this world. A world that has long since clearly deprived you during the numerous visits to the offices. The fact that you like to watch the four young actors are so happy to be sensitive to the sensitivity and fearlessness with which they slip into their role.
Opposed to them, known actors that have been known from film and TV for many decades. This includes Sophie Rois (“The School of Magic Animals”) as an unadornful, biased authorities representative as an less empathetic and wonderfully cynical psychotherapist and Kathrin Angerer (“Gundermann”). But in the end it is Jan Bülow (“Lindenberg! Make your thing”) in the role of the supervisor Ballack who shoots the bird! It appears notoriously unmotivated and disinterested, sometimes brings hearty sayings below the belt. To the outside, always with a fleece in his hand and greasy hairstyle, he makes thick trousers. In truth, however, he is a branded child with his own trauma – and, when it matters, sits down unconditionally for the four girls.
Katharina (Lea Drinda) would rather be dead than grown – does she still get new courage to live before the age of 18?
With charm and disarming joke, Markert tells notoriously pessimistic civil servants in various chapters, among other things about bureaucratic hurdles and prejudice (“Ricky's integration has failed”). Added to this are the everyday frustration and all the grave battles that Katharina, Ricky, Victoria and Malou have to face in their anarcho-flat share. With sovereign elegance, the story hits wonderful hooks – nothing can be expected here.
Markert also dives deeply in life in the neighborhood. We accompany the four “anti-heroines” in their everyday life from obligations, authorities, therapy lessons and depend. House parties and extensive shopping tours through alternative second-hand shops in Prenzlauer Berg provide the necessary distraction. Obviously for a debut: With dreamwalking certainty, the director masters the balancing act between humorous over-the brain brushes, creative ideas (such as breaking through the fourth wall or the black-humorous off-comment) and emotional, dignified view of the life realities of the four main characters.
Powerful, liberating songs
And finally a word about music. The author of this discussion has long seen no (German) film, whose soundtrack and song selection appear so unavoidable and exuberant. For example, “thanks for nothing” transfers the respective character peculiarities to the soundtrack, for example, at the flashbacks to childhood and early youth of the main characters. While Madonna-Fan Ricky, playful, playful 80s songs sound, we hear in Katharina's scenes rather minimalist, melancholy electro sounds.
In between we hear the punk electropop of the Berlin stereo Total and the heavy but atmospheric blues rock from Freigeist Lou Reed. And that in love and, with mutual respect for each other, the solution for pretty much everything is already known, German pop legend and Songpoet Rio Reiser already knew. In the end of the sounds of his strongest song (not “Junimond”!), The emotions and conflicts culminate in the end of a moving chord as well as through and through hope chord that remains in mind for a long time.
Conclusion: With “Thanks for nothing”, Stella Marie Markert succeeds in a refreshing, remarkable directorial debt over four inappropriate young people who refuse to grow into a world consisting of norms, rules and narrow-mindedness. This amusing and unconventional story from the front to back is one of the strongest film debuts this year and also looks at the challenging topic of mental illness with respect and seriousness. So must be (young) German cinema!