Happiness

Determining what happiness is should be nearly impossible. This is because each person has their own personal idea of happiness. What for some takes place more on a material level, for others is already enough a smile, a ray of sunshine or a kind word. There are many ways to find happiness - but unfortunately there are also just as many ways to lose it again. In his short story Glück (Happiness) from the short story collection Verbrechen (Crime), the lawyer Ferdinand von Schirach tells of the case of a couple who found their happiness despite the most adverse circumstances and did almost everything to keep it. Doris Dörrie has taken on this story, which is only a few pages long, and has significantly expanded the accompanying love story, creating a love drama of a special kind.

Happiness tells of Irina (Alba Rohrwacher), who flees her homeland after a war breaks out there, her family is killed and she herself is raped by soldiers. In Berlin, she ekes out a living as a prostitute, but is constantly haunted by traumatic memories of her homeland, which she tries to numb by inflicting pain on herself. The encounter with the homeless punk Kalle (Vinzenz Kiefer) brings a little light into Irina's dark life. Initially a friendship develops between them, which soon turns into a tentative but intimate love. Although the two are social outcasts, they manage to build up a small oasis of happiness. But one day this happiness threatens to break abruptly - and Kalle will not let that happen under any circumstances.

That short stories are quite suitable to be elaborated into full-length feature films has been proven again and again in the past. My personal favorite example is Frank Darabont's drama The Shawshank Redemption, based on a short story by Stephen King. The only danger with adapting such scarce source material is that the story becomes bloated with rather unnecessary filler, allowing a few lengths to creep into the film that harm rather than advance the narrative flow. And this is exactly the case with Glück, unfortunately.

The actors do their thing very well, there is no doubt about that. Nevertheless, it is disturbing that Dörrie takes too much time to build up the love story between the two. Thereby it comes to unnecessary repetitions, which the viewer wouldn't have needed to feel connected to Irina and Kalle. The time that is invested here is then missing from the story in the last third, and that's a real shame. Because while the story is told at a very leisurely pace at the beginning and here and there you can almost talk about standstill, the finale feels very rushed. But since the story is extremely interesting especially here on an emotional, but also on a psychological level, the superficiality resulting from the little time left is a completely wasted opportunity to turn happiness into a particularly intense cinematic experience.

The intentions with which Dörrie directed the film are always recognizable. But unfortunately the filmmaker gets lost too often in certain moments, while others are just dealt with too quickly. This also creates a disturbing discrepancy in the film's individual moods. For example, as a viewer you don't know whether a wonderful scene towards the end of the film between Matthias Brandt and Maren Kroymann is really meant to be as humorous as it seems at first glance. Compared to the rather macabre moments that precede this dialogue, the scene seems pleasantly lightening, but it also seems just a bit out of place, as the film beforehand with rape, prostitution and death has not exactly offered much reason to be cheerful.

Happiness really isn't a bad film. Alone some very intense images and the good actors make sure that the story leaves an impression on the viewer. But there remains also the feeling that this film could have been much better and more intense with a more balanced production. And exactly therefore remains at the end then also the conclusion: only for not exactly squeamish lovers of German love films with Arthaus character despite some weaknesses quite worth seeing.

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp