"Eine Braut kommt selten allein" is a German television film from 2017, so not a new movie, but aso not that old. It runs for 1.5 hours as they usually do and the director here is Buket Alakus, whose films usually include the subject of culture clash between germans and foreigners here in Germany. Certainly no body of work to be proud of. I saw another film by Alakus not too long ago, starring Hilmi Sözer, and that one was equally bad. The screenplay surprises me a little bit in terms of who came up with it, namely Laila Stieler, who had huge success with Gundermann not too long ago, but the vast majority of her career (including this film) are screenplays that are really very much on the other end of the quality scale and as I quite liked Gundermann (mostly because of Scheer though), I am surprised to see how many trashy films she has been a part of. As for the cast, the lead actor is Sido. Yep. The German rapper. No idea what they were thinking there. Admittedly, it must be said that Sido does not stand out more neatively than many other areas where this film sucked. Still, even if they wrote his character in a way (of course there is also the reference that the character was a talented musician, like Sido himsel? Haha good one!) where he cannot to too much wrong, a lead actor he is not by any definition. The female co-lead is Michelle Barthel, who is onlly listed fourth credit here surprisingly. The actress is definitely not as exotic as her character in this film. Honestly, the first time I saw her here I felt it was crass miscasting, but I kinda got used to her, even if I am a bit surprised by her looks. Saw her in at least one other film and I remebered her to be pretty stunning, which she is not in this one here. aybe it's the makeup, no idea. There are more familiar faces. Schmidt-Schaller plays the protagonist's ex-wife. I think there is also the actress in here from Stromberg, who plays the Polish woman, but she only has one scene this time. Stephan Grossmann is also one that German film buffs will recognize and be it only for his stature. And finally Idil Üner, who is part of this film early on and already worked with the director as the lead in another movie, but her scene with how she beats up this thug is cringeworthy enough already. The first pretty weak moment this film had to offer. Many others were to follow.
So in the second paragraph, as usual, I will elaborate a bit on why I thought this was a horrible watch. There are many scenes and examples. One I just mentioned already, but the worst of them all is probably when we have the protagonist randomly run into a friend, a male friend who wears make-up like a woman, a wig and works as a prostitute. Now that was just a bad joke and honestly, if this film had any ambition to be taken seriously, there it is 100% gone. This scene happens a little later on already. I guess they do not only wanted to make a statement in terms of tolerance (or "tolerance") when it comes to immigrants, but also when it comes to homosexuals. Anyway, there is more that sucks before that already. The subway scene with everybody getting involved is a prime example. Actually, I was slightly about to like the film at least a little bit because how she used all his marijuana for the salad was slightly hilarious not gonna lie, but a minuter later this garbage subway scene followed and I immediately forgot this could be an okay movie. Because in reality, it is the opposite. The marijuana parts also get weak eventually and the amount of drug abuse in here (not harmless) for the sake of it is also abysmal. And this film did want to be taken seriously. It also shows during the smaller moments. Take everything involving the old man. They had to get that concentration camp message in there no? Like "Harold and Maude" gone horribly wrong if we are talking about that scene. What happens immediately afterwards with the guy dying and giving the protagonist his watch isn't any better. What is equally bad is that Sido's character's ex-wife all of a sudden develops a romantic interest in him again, but Sido's character eventually only wants the Balkan girl as we find out. Her transformation from what she wears early on to how she dresses like a modern German woman within minutes is also not good at all. As for Sido, well I mean you can see sometimes the guy has so many tattoos and one of those is his own birthday, really big and where everybody can see it. It is tough to depict a story about understanding and tolerance with him at the center of the story. Let's not even get started about the texts from his songs. Acting is also not his thing at all like I mentioned earlier. Oh yeah, the refugee drama at the end is also not half as effective as they want it to be, even if there were admittedly worse sequences. It's the brief moments that sucked too. Take the main character's daughter and her quote about "Oxbridge". There they wanted to imply that she can achieve great things, but as a kid cannot remember the exact name, so let's just mix Cambridge and Oxford. As simple as it gets for a writer. Take "Camberg" or "Soxford", whatever. It would have felt realistic, but then the (not so) bright ARD audience members, who liked this film, would not have gotten the reference. Or also when the daughter tells her mother that her dad can be an idiot sometimes and also when she talks to him and you can see she is not happy with whhat he did. The daughter I mean. The mother's talking to the audience directly isn't any better. Sigh. So much wrong with this film we have here.. Luckily it "only" went for slightly under 90 minutes. Of course, at the end there is also a happy ending, at least in terms of romance. I could probably come up with another two paragraphs here on why this was a simply terrible movie, but I shall leave it at that and hopefully soon forget about it altogether. Oh wait no, the homesickness out of nowhere shall be mentioned. And the concert at the end is also among the weakest the film has to offer (although it was meant as a creative highlight) and that means something. Once again, your GEZ money at work, folks. For trash like that and the worst is probably that this will still be on television 15 years from now I'm pretty sure. Revolting. Big thumbs-down. Highly not recommended. So much wrong here. What is maybe the most disgraceful is that Sido himself has similar roots to the ones of the female protagonist in this movie, so it should be important to him that it becomes an okay project quality-wise. Which means he should have pulled out. But he did not and the outcome is accordingly. Very weak, that is. Watch something else instead.
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