Jan (Mark Waschke), his wife Nina (Sabine Timoteo), and their children Emma (Jule Hermann) and Max (Wanja Valentin Kube) are at their holiday home by the sea for the weekend somewhen off-season - when their house is broken into. Now while Jan is just coming back from the supermarket and the kids were distracted by something else, it's really only Nina who has seen the intruders and apparently chased them away - and now Jan starts to wonder whether the home invasion has only been in her head ... which naturally creates a rift between the two, a rift that has however been gestating quite a bit longer, maybe ever since he has accepted an assignment from a political party for their ad agency despite the fact they've agreed to not go into politics, something that has already sparked outrage with the general public. From the maybe-home invasion onwards though, it seems that every argument Jan and Nina have, every conversation even, circles back to it - in a way that's not healthy for their relationship ...

Now what's rather fascinating about this film is it's non-linear, somewhat cyclical structure that always comes back to the same central plotpoint and adds to the narration each time, while never announcing when the plot might jump back or forward in time, often catching the viewer by surprise. Unfortunately though, this movie doesn't have a strong enough story to really support such a narrative approach, so at times the film just loses itself in its plot, at others it tries to pack way too much subplots into its rather feeble main storyline, and at yet other points one isn't sure what the film actually wants to say. And that everything is treated quite as serious as in this film doesn't help much either. At least some of it is balanced out by a very moody directorial effort, but a grave revision of the script, including losing maybe half an hour or so of plot, would have done wonders for this one.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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