A turning point in the Rostock police call, because Chief Inspector Bukow (Charly Hübner) has deposed. The North German episodes have so far been characterized by their consistently exceptional quality. And you could get a little scared, given the wealth of topics that the new crime thriller with the meaningless title “Daniel A.” wanted to negotiate. It’s about gender and role identities, very early motherhood, the loss of someone and the grief about it, an extramarital affair, a new job in a new team – and the death of a young woman should somehow be clarified. With such a wealth, the critic commonly assumes that the main story probably cannot carry an entire film. And if, as a spectator, you know right from the start who the perpetrator was, that doesn’t exactly help build tension.
For a long time, “Daniel A.” like old GDR thrillers, which were often more drama than crime and liked to create psychograms of perpetrators and victims. Except that the not yet outed transman Daniel A. is actually neither a victim nor a perpetrator in the first crime novel of the post-Bukow era, but merely a suspect, but only in the eyes of the investigators who are aware of his occasional change of gender identity can’t know anything. When Daniela transforms back into a beautiful young woman at the dressing table for father-daughter day, she is not happy about it because it forces her to suppress her true nature. Her non-outing results from the misery of the single father, who believes he has failed anyway because the younger daughter became a mother at the age of 15 and is visibly overwhelmed. Daniela is the stable anchor in the family.
It’s very good that Jonathan Perleth, a trans man, could be won for the role of Daniel A., because it shows that with a little effort, the much-demanded diversity can actually be implemented. Perleth commended for more with his multi-layered portrayal of Daniel. Of course, he benefited from an extremely successful book (Benjamin Hessler) and a direction (Dustin Loose) that told the many stories almost casually, so that the increasingly exciting police call crime thriller was neither overloaded nor superficial. The very good team of actors with a gorgeous Lina Beckmann as the new inspector Melly Böwe showed that great Rostock police calls can also be expected in the future. Bukow is not missing!