Lovely Louise

Mid-fifties André (Stefan Kurt) leads a very unremarkable life. Together with his eighty-year-old mother, the actress Louise (Annemarie Düringer), he shares a small, unadorned apartment. And even his work as a taxi driver brings little real excitement to the everyday life of the shy man. Only when he can pursue his great passion on the model airfield and adore the attractive sausage seller Steffi (Nina Proll) from a distance, a little color comes into his gray life. But André is not complaining. He has come to terms with his existence and even enjoys the clearly structured everyday life with his mother a little. But then, all at once, everything goes off the rails when American Bill (Stanley Townsend) shows up and introduces himself as Louise's illegitimate son. André doesn't quite know how to handle this situation: Should he be pleased with the unknown brother, or should he be more jealous of the attention Louise is suddenly paying to her long-lost son? Should he treat the stranger with suspicion or should he use his presence to finally take care of his own life? But no matter what he decides, one thing is clear: a whole lot is about to change because of Bill.

As with her surprise success The Autumn Timeless, Bettina Oberli's new film once again centers on a lady of mature age. However, the story of Lovely Louise is not told from the point of view of the titular Louise, but from that of her son André. He is actually a completely failed existence. He has never fulfilled his dreams and he is convinced that his mother cannot live without him - just as he cannot function without her. And Louise herself is also just dwelling on her once glorious past without enjoying the present in the slightest. Two very dysfunctional characters living past happiness in mutual dependence on each other - it sounds like a drama of the particularly melancholy kind.

However, as with The Autumn Timelines, Oberli once again manages to lighten the story, which is suffused with a deep melancholy, considerably with quiet humour. Lovely Louise is not a gag firework that fires off one thigh-slapper after the other. But it is an amusing film that defies its underlying heaviness with a lot of charm and dry wit. The acting by Annemarie Düringer, who has already appeared in Die Herbstzeitlosen, and Stefan Kurt is a perfect match for Oberli and Petra Volpe's subtle screenplay. The book and the play give the characters an emotional depth that makes them very accessible to the audience, even if the laconic staging does seem a bit unwieldy now and then.

Although the ending can't quite deliver what the beginning promises and the humor is already very peculiar at times, Lovely Louise is, on balance, a very nice story about how it's never too late to follow your dreams and how you shouldn't surrender to the addictions of everyday life. Certainly not a comedy for the masses, but if you like small films with understated humor in the style of The Autumn Timeless, Lovely Louise is also guaranteed to grow on you. Worth seeing

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp