Karoline Herfurth’s new film: Happy endings are becoming more and more complicated

Film Karoline Herfurth’s new film

It’s getting more and more complicated with the happy endings

Stand: 17.11.2022 | Reading time: 2 minutes

Karoline Herfurth (left) and Milena Tscharntke

Quelle: © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

You can listen to our WELT podcasts here

In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is required, since the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third-party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (which can be revoked at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can withdraw your consent at any time via the switch and via privacy at the bottom of the page.

We’ve had enough of the same old romantic comedies for a while. Then came Karoline Herfurth. Your latest feature film “Einfach mal was schönes” once again terrifically violates the rules of the genre.

Da is something else, you can sense that pretty quickly in “Einfach malwas was schönes”. A wedding, the archetypal setting for romantic comedies: the father (Herbert Knaup) of radio presenter Karla (Karoline Herfurth) is getting married a second time, Karla discovers her ex among the guests, she once had an abortion for his sake because he “still had a child”. was not ready”. The ex is accompanied by his visibly pregnant new girl.

So far, so romcomig. But now Karla’s mother (Ulrike Kriener), drunk, bursts into her former husband’s celebration, and you can feel that this is more than a foreign-shame gag, that it is not over as soon as the scene is over, there is something existentially serious behind it.

also read

That’s how it will be in Herfurth’s fourth cinema direction even more often; the previous one, “Beautiful”, was only six months ago and was one of the most successful German films of the year. There is drama in “Einfach mal was Schönes”, and the art lies in the dosage, how often Herfurth lets a sombre foundation pierce the pink surface. There’s a lot of pink: the late 30’s hearing her biological clock ticking; the gallery of dating men who are all screwed; the best friend who makes an appointment with the sperm bank. And Karla’s sisters, one of whom (Nora Tschirner) cheats and the other (Milena Tscharntke) wants to marry a professional soccer player.

Karoline Herfurth and Aaron Altaras

Quelle: © Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

There is a lot of romance in “Einfach mal was Schönes”, including a pony carriage and a dream castle, and also a lot of zeitgeist, including a Berlin loft and an attempt at conflict resolution in a circle of chairs, which escalates more and more: a small comical jewel. Almost imperceptibly, however, Herfurth pushes the secret core of her story to the fore, and this is Karla’s process of breaking the cord from her mother. A characteristic of romantic comedies is their comforting, cloudy conflict resolution, but Herfurth remains tough as nails here.

This actually also applies to the problem of children. At some point, Karla meets a three-day-beard-nurse-wuschel (Aaron Altaras), who is actually too cute to be true. Everything would be fine but she’s 39 and pushing and he’s 28 and braking. As a screenwriter, you first have to find a solution for this. Don’t tell them. Just this much: it has to do with carriages.