Matthias Glasner’s epic is a black comedy of Franzenesque family dysfunction; maybe not profound exactly but terrifically watchable and entertaining. It is about the time-honoured subject of what we inherit from our parents and what is gained and lost by rejecting that inheritance. The film features that always formidable German actor Lars Eidinger as an orchestra conductor - and it will be no surprise that when he takes to the podium at the Berlin Philharmonic, it is the scene of the biggest and most embarrassing fiasco since Cate Blanchett’s fierce creation Lydia Tár had her own meltdown on the exact same spot two years ago.
Eidinger plays Tom, an emotionally withdrawn figure about to embark on the most serious project of his career. It is a performance of Sterben, or Dying, a piece for orchestra and choir composed by a testy and depressive friend (Robert Gwisdeck) who is always butting in during rehearsals, undermining Tom, insulting the musicians and angrily unable to decide if his work is valuable or worthless kitsch. The film is itself, tellingly, unable to decide either - the one public performance is followed by audience members sounding divided on the subject.
Tom is royally messed up by becoming a quasi-dad, in that his pregnant ex-girlfriend (with whom he is still in love) has asked him to be her birthing partner because she isn’t getting the right kind of emotional support from her current boyfriend, whom she has however no intention of leaving. Tom doesn’t see much of his sister (Lilith Stangenberg) who herself has musical talent - she has a marvellous singing voice but only lets people hear it when she’s drunk. She is a dental assistant having an affair with the married dentist - and in her various drunk or hungover states is always in danger of injuring patients while supposedly keeping metal implements steady in their mouths.
