After young Johann Wolfgang von Goethe fails his Doctorial Examination his father dispatches him to some godforsaken suburban town so that he can knuckle down and become a Lawyer like him. Whilst there he falls in love with a pretty but penniless girl in the next village and when he is spurned because she chooses another wealthy suitor to marry, he sits down in a fit of desperation and major self-pity and writes an epistolary and largely biographical novel that then becomes the world’s first ever best seller. Oh yes, it also starts off a whole Romanticism movement as well as being the sole reason why the suicide rate of young lovelorn men in Germany suddenly shoots up.
The rest is history and we know that after this period covered in this movie stops that the young man not only gets over his broken heart, but he breaks it several times again in the future, and in between becomes Germany’s most celebrated and famous literary writer.
If German period movies and Goethe are your thing, then this movie is definitely for you. I however have no penchant for either and so for me this was just a beautifully photographed, over-sentimentalized, slow-moving, pleasant movie. What made it watchable were the extremely impressive performances of the three lead actors, particularly Alexander Fehling as Goethe. It is obvious that this young actor is yet another member of the ‘Inglorious Bastards’ cast that is now about to hit the big time (as are Melanie Laurent + Michael Fassbinder).
There has been so much written on Goethe to date … and incidentally the novel that featured in the movie is still in print some 376 years after is was first published … but I think this is the first time that he has been the subject of a feature film. Whether is accurate historically is not something I can judge, but I would really question the annoying final scene when people are fighting in the bookstore to get a copy of the novel: its shot like the mob were embracing the winner of American Idol, and certainly not an 18th Century writer. Hmmm.
P.S.
 |
| Here’s ‘Young Goethe’ ignoring me at the Screening! |
★★★★★★★
Click For Trailer
Labels:
