Horst_In_Translation Review of 303

303 (2018)

A really good character study and romance movie with great insight on important issues, but...

[6/10 · 20 July 2018]

This is "303", a new German movie written and directed by established Austrian filmmaker Hans Weingartner and it is his first film in 7 years almost 15 years after his biggest success "The Edukators". And with this work here, he focuses again on challenges for youth with love playing a major role, probably the one at the center of it all. If we stick to the people we see on screen, this is basically a 2-actor piece and these two are Mala Emde and Anton Spieker. Both are doing a really fine job all in all, but it was Emde who blew me away here and she has such great screen presence that I have no doubts that with her approach she will be with us for a long time in theaters if we are lucky enough that she will not choose another career path. Now back to this movie. It is the definition of a road movie really. There is romance in here too, but I am a bit hesitant to really call it a pure romance movie with how it is all growing from start to finish. Slowly and steadily. And it happens in almost 2.5 hours, so this is a really long film, but as such, it definitely flew by. The dialogue writing is amazing i must say. Sharp, witty, refreshing and bold. Of course it helps that Emde and Spieker have pretty good chemistry too. Some beautiful shots we got as well landscape-wise as this film takes us through several European countries. The vehicle in which they are travelling adds some charme too I cannot deny and I am writing this as somebody who is not interested in cars at all. So the film's best moments are way above a 3 out of 5 for sure. But sadly, there are major flaws, a few actually and these force me to correct the rating a bit south. When the film relies on actions instead of words, it struggles at times. I can maybe live with the coincidence that they happen to be at the same motorway station at exactly the same time, but that he is knocking at her door the moment she is in danger of getting raped, it may be a bit too much. Or the deceased brother with suicide at age 27 and how the male protagonist is talking about exactly that. Or that they are both struggling with university at the exact same time early on. Or that he is about to go see his biological father. Or that she is pregnant. And then isn't. It's just too much. I also did not like the very last shot that much, it is a bit too simple and feel-good, which is nice because I wanted them to end up together I guess, but it just does not offer the same depth as everything before that. It's a bit of a shame as every time the film tries to come up with convincing drama it is not working at all and the movie really did not need these moments because it is working so magnificently well in other firlds and it's sad to see Weingartner going for these cheap thrills frequently that are almost an insult to the best moments the film has to offer. But yeah, if you manage to get through these, then you will definitely enjoy the watch here. There are some major strengths this film has to offer that I mentioned earlier already. It's truly a beautiful movie at times and aside from what i just mentioned, there is really not much about these 150 minutes almost that is not working, just very minor moments like specific scenes or Spieker not always hitting the right notes which also may have had to do with the way the character was written, not necessarily his performance. But then again we got Emde getting things right again in the most meaningful ways you can imagine. I still wonder what the title means though, gonna give it a look, perhaps not the greatest title and certainly not on par with the two characters' conversations about issues like love, attraction, society, Darwin, proximity, family and many many others. This is when the film works best. This is why you should see it. Don't miss out, if not on the screen, then otherwise. One of Germany's best from 2018 without a doubt and very close too to being among one of Europe's best in my opinion too. There's no way thiks will not garner some great awards attention in the months to come, even if the subject probably isn't the right one for this to be picked for Germany's Oscar submission. But this really should not keep you from watching. Thumbs up, close to a big thumbs-up in fact for this film that at its very best 2 or 3 moments reminded me of Linklater's beginning to the "Before..." trilogy. We'll see if there will be a 304 10 years from now