"Zuckerbaby" or "Sugarbaby" is a West German German-language film from 1985, so it had its 30th anniversary last year. the writer and director is Percy Adlon (turned 80 last year) and this was the beginning of a trilogy of films he made with actress Marianne Sägebrecht. The other two are in English language though and include an Academy Award nominee. Sägebrecht herself was nominated for a German Film Award here and same goes for her co-lead Eisi Gulp, who for whatever wrong reason was nominated in the supporting category. Neither of the duo won the award. These two basically are the film, especially Sägebrecht. She probably was a good casting decision for this one and I believe this film would have been worse without her. This is not supposed to say the film was particularly interesting though. It is a two-man show and the two actors make a solid job, but the script never really made me care for either of them or allowed me to make an emotional connection here. Sägebrecht always plays characters who somewhat define themselves through their weight, but are not negative people, rather likable. I do believe she is a very physical actress. She frequently plays the nice friendly obese woman from next door who struggles with life and human relationships a bit, but it does not take away from how likable she is. Anyway, all in all I am glad this film only ran for slightly over 80 minutes. It dragged for me on several occasions and sometimes I also felt it was style over substance, may have worked better and been more essential as a short film of around 40 minutes. I don't recommend the watch, or only if you really loved "Outt of Rosenheim". Maybe I also did not like it that much because Bavarian culture and humor are absolutely not my thing. Thumbs down.
Review of Sugar Baby
