"Die geliebten Schwestern" or "Beloved Sisters" was written and directed by Dominik Graf, a man in his 60s with a long career in TV and film industry who has worked with pretty much every big German name in terms of acting. Recently, he was responsible for the very much lauded German TV series "Im Angesicht des Verbrechens".
The three lead actors in "Beloved Sisters" come from Henriette Confurius as Charlotte von Lengefeld, Hannah Herzsprung as Caroline von Lengefeld and Florian Stetter as famous poet Friedrich Schiller. It is basically all about their triangle relationship and the other men and women in their (love) lives. The result is like a huge colorful and beautifully decorated package with a sparkling twisted bow. And without anything inside. The costumes and art directions/set decorations are all fine as far as I can be a judge of that, but that is pretty much it. The acting is forgettable, sometimes cringeworthy. The writing is shoddy from start to finish. One example: Of course the husband to the older sister had to come the very moment she was in bed with Schiller. This film is the epitome of a mediocre period piece with no memorable features at all. Confurius and Stetter did not have a single scene that wowed me and Herzsprung was the negative standout, just like in her previous schmaltzy romance movie "Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen".
I really wonder what the German Film academy was thinking when they chose this movie as the official German submission to the 2015 Academy Awards. Now this stands in line with "The Lives of Others", "The White Ribbon", "When We Leave" and, most recently, "Two Lives"? Pretty ridiculous. I am fairly certain there are 25-30 better German movies this year and looking at the shortlist ambitious projects such as Edgar Reitz' newest "Heimat" movie or "Wolfskinder" are just another league completely in terms of quality. "Beloved Sisters" is the epitome of shallow and superficial and would even be a disappointment for a movie shown on German television at 8:15 pm. Another weakness I found with the movie was the narration (coming from director Graf himself), which added nothing really. Those scenes where the protagonists were speaking with the camera (i.e. the audience) felt completely out of place and truly hurt the movie as they were thrown in so randomly and their monologues were utterly pretentious. So were the overblown dialogs. Yes people were speaking differently at that point in time, but not like that. The movie takes itself far more seriously than it has any justification to do so.
I can't even call the film a guilty pleasure as the intrigues between the sisters themselves and Charlotte von Kalb for example were simply not interesting enough to keep the audience glued to the screen, especially for a film that crosses the two-hour mark considerably. still, if you liked this, let me recommend you another recent German period piece "Young Goethe in Love", which is not a masterpiece either, but clearly superior to "Die geliebten Schwestern". I hope there will soon be a film that does Schiller's art justice as this piece of tripe certainly does not. However, in order to end the review on a more positive note, I would like to say that Claudia Messner, who played the mother of the two girls, gave a good performance and stole all of her scenes, really the only positive highlight here. Still her role is not big enough to make up for everything else that is wrong with this very flawed film and I certainly would not recommend watching it.
The three lead actors in "Beloved Sisters" come from Henriette Confurius as Charlotte von Lengefeld, Hannah Herzsprung as Caroline von Lengefeld and Florian Stetter as famous poet Friedrich Schiller. It is basically all about their triangle relationship and the other men and women in their (love) lives. The result is like a huge colorful and beautifully decorated package with a sparkling twisted bow. And without anything inside. The costumes and art directions/set decorations are all fine as far as I can be a judge of that, but that is pretty much it. The acting is forgettable, sometimes cringeworthy. The writing is shoddy from start to finish. One example: Of course the husband to the older sister had to come the very moment she was in bed with Schiller. This film is the epitome of a mediocre period piece with no memorable features at all. Confurius and Stetter did not have a single scene that wowed me and Herzsprung was the negative standout, just like in her previous schmaltzy romance movie "Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen".
I really wonder what the German Film academy was thinking when they chose this movie as the official German submission to the 2015 Academy Awards. Now this stands in line with "The Lives of Others", "The White Ribbon", "When We Leave" and, most recently, "Two Lives"? Pretty ridiculous. I am fairly certain there are 25-30 better German movies this year and looking at the shortlist ambitious projects such as Edgar Reitz' newest "Heimat" movie or "Wolfskinder" are just another league completely in terms of quality. "Beloved Sisters" is the epitome of shallow and superficial and would even be a disappointment for a movie shown on German television at 8:15 pm. Another weakness I found with the movie was the narration (coming from director Graf himself), which added nothing really. Those scenes where the protagonists were speaking with the camera (i.e. the audience) felt completely out of place and truly hurt the movie as they were thrown in so randomly and their monologues were utterly pretentious. So were the overblown dialogs. Yes people were speaking differently at that point in time, but not like that. The movie takes itself far more seriously than it has any justification to do so.
I can't even call the film a guilty pleasure as the intrigues between the sisters themselves and Charlotte von Kalb for example were simply not interesting enough to keep the audience glued to the screen, especially for a film that crosses the two-hour mark considerably. still, if you liked this, let me recommend you another recent German period piece "Young Goethe in Love", which is not a masterpiece either, but clearly superior to "Die geliebten Schwestern". I hope there will soon be a film that does Schiller's art justice as this piece of tripe certainly does not. However, in order to end the review on a more positive note, I would like to say that Claudia Messner, who played the mother of the two girls, gave a good performance and stole all of her scenes, really the only positive highlight here. Still her role is not big enough to make up for everything else that is wrong with this very flawed film and I certainly would not recommend watching it.