Three-Quarter Moon

Hartmut Mackowiak (Elmar Wepper), a taxi driver in Nuremberg, is not really a cheerful contemporary. He constantly finds a reason to scold his fellow men and makes no secret of his sometimes rather antiquated prejudices. His wife (Katja Rupé) also has to put up with her husband's grumpy manner day after day. But after 30 years she has had enough. She leaves Hartmut for another man. And suddenly the taxi driver is forced to completely rearrange his life. Just at this moment, the 6-year-old Turkish girl Hayat (Mercan Türkoglu) lands in Hartmut's taxi. With her mother away on business and her grandmother in hospital, the girl, who doesn't speak a word of German, is all alone and in need of help. And that help is supposed to come from Hartmut, the curmudgeon of all people. Of course, he first tries to get rid of the girl - without success. And so Hartmut decides to go in search of Hayat's mother and does not suspect that this time will change his life permanently.

Three-Quarter Moon could quite easily have drowned in clichés and degenerated into a flat Schmachtfetzen. But fortunately that is not the case. Director and screenwriter Christian Zübert has created a wonderfully warm-hearted and likeable tragicomedy that always takes the right path until the convincing finale, while not always living up to the audience's expectations here and there. Sure, there are no really big surprises. But in small and very important nuances, Zübert succeeds brilliantly in avoiding dramaturgical cliffs and not indulging in the most obvious clichés. This gives the film a pleasant freshness and originality, which increases the entertainment value enormously.

The whole thing is carried of course by the actors, especially Elmar Wepper. As a grumbling Franconian taxi driver, the actor is once again in top form after Kirschblüten - Hanami. He embodies grandiosely a man who has entrenched himself in his own world to such an extent that other people have no place there. The transformation he undergoes in the course of the film is not only believable thanks to Wepper's wonderful performance, but simply heartwarming. Little Mercan Türkoglu, who was chosen from hundreds of children in a casting for the role of Hayat, is incredibly cute, but comes across as pleasantly natural. Christian Zübert's team has really done a great job here. Because where many other film children either too exaggeratedly cute or precocious come along, Mercan Türkoglu can win the hearts of the audience with simple naturalness.

The way the film resolves the plot around Hartmut and his wife is accomplished, as is the finale, which could have retroactively damaged the film's positive impact with a little extra scene. But Zübert ends the story at exactly the right moment, a feat that truly cannot be taken for granted. So Dreiviertelmond is simply pure feel-good cinema that scores with wonderful actors, beautiful shots of Nuremberg and an enchanting story. For lovers of somewhat quieter comedies from Germany, this work is therefore also: absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp