"Agnes" is a German movie from last year (2016). It runs for 100 minutes roughly and this already includes a great deal of closing credits, so around 90 minutes is probably more accurate. It is the most recent work by director Johannes Schmid and he is also one of several writers working on this project. The cast is not too known I guess. Even Odine Johne who plays the title character and Stephan Kampwirth, who plays the male co-lead here, are not exactly names that seem familiar to German film buffs, even if they both, especially Kampwirth, have really long careers. The consequence in this movie is also that I was never really impressed with the characters. The film is slowly drifting forward, but nothing ever happens, which is not really a problem if (and that's a huge "if") we get a convincing character study, but this isn't the case here either as when it felt realistic it never went under the surface of it all. It is pretty tough to put a finger on what the exact reason is why I did not enjoy this film too much. I am not saying at all that it is a failure or anything, but it's not even close to being good enough to an extent where I would recommend it and this includes pretty much all production values here. I also found it shocking how (even if it was definitely trying to make an impact there) emotionally unattached I felt during the entire movie. Maybe it was the bleakness. All in all, a thumbs-down. Watch something else instead.
Review of Agnes
