Veronika Decides to Die - DVD

Film: The novel "Veronika Decides to Die" by Paulo Coelhos provides the template for the drama of the same name by Emily Young. The story centers on young Veronika (Sarah Michelle Gellar), whose life seems perfect on the outside. She has a well-paying job, lives in a posh apartment in the middle of New York, she is young, good-looking and independent. But she is missing something very important: passion. And without passion, Veronika doesn't want to live. And so she decides to die with the help of an overdose of sleeping pills.

But the attempt fails and the young woman wakes up in a mental institution. There, it is revealed to her by the hospital director, Dr. Blake (David Thewlis), that the sleeping pills have damaged her heart to such an extent that Veronika has only a few days to live. And although Veronika has already given up and longs for the coming death, these few last days will change her life forever...

In principle, "Veronika Decides to Die" has the right basic ingredients for a gripping and poignant drama. A moving script, a good ensemble of actors and some very moving moments. But the production as a whole just feels too forced, too melancholy to really capture the viewer. Sarah Michelle Gellar does her best to convey Veronika's indifference to her life. But unfortunately, at the crucial moment, she fails to reveal that something is beginning to move, to change, in her character. Her acting shows too few facets to clarify Veronika's development over the course of the film.

Where films like "Einer flog übers Cuckucksnest" or "K-Pax", which tell completely different stories but are set in a similar environment, were able to break up the gloom and despair of a psychiatric ward with well-measured humor or endearingly quirky characters, "Veronika decides to die" gets too lost in the suffering of its characters. Even though there is a clearly positive message at the end, the viewer is burdened with such heaviness until then that it is almost impossible to break free of it at the end.

The director's intentions are undoubtedly good, this becomes clear in the film's successful and also touching moments. But unfortunately these good intentions are so crushed by a sometimes unnecessary dramaturgical heaviness that this completely destroys the actual emotionality of the story in the most important moments. Well acted and wrapped in beautiful, engaging imagery, but still a somewhat too unwieldy adaptation of a great novel.

Image + Sound: Visually, the atmosphere of the story was captured well. Both the color mixing, the occasionally somewhat overdone brightness, contrasts, and the decent overall sharpness help to draw the viewer into the action. At times, the image appears a bit grainy, but this is only a limited negative. The audio remains largely restrained, dominated by the dialogue, the gentle score, and purposefully used ambient sounds. The German soundtrack sounds a bit more powerful, which is definitely positive for a film carried by dialogue. Absolutely coherent and good!

Extras: Besides the trailer, the DVD also has three interesting interviews with the director (approx. 13 min.), production designer John Nyomarkay (approx. 7 min.) and cinematographer Seamus Tierney (approx. 5 min.) to offer. In addition to this single-DVD variant, the film will also be released as a 3-disc mediabook offering the film on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as a bonus DVD with the complete audio book.

Conclusion: "Veronika Decides to Die" is a well-acted and engagingly filmed drama that suffers only from its somewhat too heavy-handed staging. The DVD is technically satisfying, but offers little in the way of extras, with only three interviews. The bottom line is that the film doesn't quite live up to its literary template, but offers enough positive elements to be considered worth watching

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp