"42plus" is an Austrian (mostly) German-language movie from 2007, so this one has its 10th anniversary right now. The writer and director is Austrian Sabine Derflinger and she was in her early 40s when she made this one. If you take a look at the cast, you will find a bunch of names like Tukur, Michelsen, Moretti and Matschenz that are certainly known to German-speaking audiences. In the center of this film that runs for roughly 1.5 hours we have a couple played by Tukur and Michelsen and as they go on a trip together we find out about their lack of faithfulness. Michelsen for example has a longtime affair with Moretti's character, a colleague of Tukur's and at the same time she enters into an affair with a very young man played by Matschenz. And we find out a bit about these supporting players too. But the elaborations feel never on a level where we could really feel for the characters or care about what happens to them. And it certainly isn't helping matters at all that they are all really unlikable unfortunately. So yeah, all in all this film is not more eventually than showing us how the elite, pretty rich people here in the center of the movie, knows no moral boundaries or shame. This is a connection that becomes obvious many many times throughout the entire film. I have seen other stuff by Derflinger and not liked it too much, which is why I believe that maybe her approach just isn't in accordance with what I perceive quality film. So my dislike is perhaps a bit of a subjective note. But I still felt that the film turned out eventually as shallow as the people in it. However, I don't think it is a failure, which would have been almost impossible though given the cast. The negative still outweighs the positive and I recommend you to watch something else instead.
3 Reviews
Rotten to the core
pembekeci23 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
There is not too much to say about the plot. Main character once says that they're all rotten to the core. That actually summarizes the characters in the movie.
Almost everyone in the movie tries to find someone else who can touch their feelings with their dicks or vags :)))) Some of them keeps the feelings out! Except the little teenage mermaid worth to be loved.
But one scene was absolutely absurd and disgusting! When the woman and his dumb ass lover was making love half naked in the hotel room and bellboy enters the room to deliver some beverages but duo keeps making love in front of him like he is some like a carpet or table in the room. :)) Hey!, are you from roman empire? Is he a worthless slave? What kind of disrespectfullness is this!?
You can see the scene in the movie poster.
Watchable, but doesn't put any burden on you to think about.
Almost everyone in the movie tries to find someone else who can touch their feelings with their dicks or vags :)))) Some of them keeps the feelings out! Except the little teenage mermaid worth to be loved.
But one scene was absolutely absurd and disgusting! When the woman and his dumb ass lover was making love half naked in the hotel room and bellboy enters the room to deliver some beverages but duo keeps making love in front of him like he is some like a carpet or table in the room. :)) Hey!, are you from roman empire? Is he a worthless slave? What kind of disrespectfullness is this!?
You can see the scene in the movie poster.
Watchable, but doesn't put any burden on you to think about.
Provocative and mesmerizing foreign cinema
millerian-0279711 February 2024
Great acting, wonderful script, open sexuality and provocativeness is so refreshing next to most American films, has a wonderful sense of blocking. Realizing you need to live your life your way before it ends. Love being a fantastical idea that only exists when it seems like everything will go away or you are young & innocent. Realizing your own past mistakes and errors can be made up for, and finally living a life that you seemed to have lost, passion finally regained. Life is tough, but not enjoying the brief time you have is even harder. So many wonderful lines of dialogue that provoke thought and made you think about the life you lead, and the lives that are led around you. Asking questions about stagnant marriages, the innocence of young love, and finally resisting the stasis and escaping to your own self-reflection. Love to see when characters learn, change, and grow from the stasis from which they are kept. Impeccable performance by Claudia Michelsen, such vulnerability and the wonderful quite frustration, wanting to explore but unsure how far to go. Ulrich Tucker is also wonderful as her husband, a man who cheated on her, broke her heart, yet still has the gall to complain about her finally doing the same thing to him, somehow sympathetic and conniving at the same time. Derflinger shoots the movie impeccably, with an eye for the cross between bodies, and the way the bodies come together and separate. The human body as an experiment of filmmaking, how it moves and how it ends up, we are all the same species yet so far apart. The screenplay is wonderful, the dialogue is so beautifully written, each monologue was like I was being spoken to through the screen, hit me to my core. Dialogue about the ritualistic process of marriage, breaking up, loving, and falling back out of it. The midlife crisis is a horrifying journey, we know that life will reach that eventuality but doesn't make it hurt any less. The beauty in the tragedy, plays like a Shakespearen play, without all of the murder, just the murder of a broken heart. Also just really damn mesmerizing and engaging, only 88 minutes but just kind of flies by, just a series of well-written characters & scenes you actually get involved with.
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