"Liebe ist das schönste Geschenk", which means "Love is the most beautiful present", is a German television film from 2007, although I struggle wwith using the word "film" for this abomination. It runs for almost 1.5 hours as they usually do and there are several aspects and inclusions that make it very obvious that this one here can only be a failure of the highest/lowest order: director Kubach and writer Klaschka would be two of those, not only because of their many collaborations with the horribly untalented actress Neubauer. Two others would be production companies Degeto and Regina Ziegler, who almost always guarantee crappy quality when it comes to their projects. The title is also really telling. This derives from a quote from one of the older characters in here, but honestly it could have been used for almost every Defeto/Ziegler film as it is as empty as it is pretentious. Also this film is a sequel to a movie from three years earlier. I guess that one was mostly about the two younger characters becoming a couple, but honestly I have zero interest to see it. Probably Speichert had more screen time in that one than she does here and if you see her screaming with joy at the very end because of her husband's surprise, then you know and understand why they wanted to keep this actress ("actress") out of the movie as much as possible. Her name is still somewhat famous here in Germany, even if I must admit that I thought she was still better back in 2007 and not acting in crap films like this one here that are approximately the same level like Schönauer, Pilcher, Danella and Lindström adaptations. So the cast is not too shabby, many actors that are easy to recognize, such as Brauer, Heesters, Karusseit and Vogler. If they are good, is another question. With Vogler I am still a bit disappointed to see him appear in really many abysmal films like this one here given the fact that he was once Wenders' regular lead actor. Oh well, I suppose he needed the money. His role isn't even big or so. But with that meaningful chess question, he also gets his moment of 100% cringe. So does everybody else. And his forced romance story is implied. Nobody shall stay single here. Well, maybe except the chubby lady in her pompous outfits perhaps. I am talking about the one who keeps asking the young doctor for medical advice and helps him in the phone booth scene. She was the most annoying from them all.
Marriage is a key aspect in this film we have here. You can see that from the poster too. Of course, they once again got it all wrong. The highlight (i.e. lowlight) was really when the two protagonists were about to cancel their wedding and this was so out of nowhere and made absolutely no sense. Pseudo drama of the worst kind and it was 100% sure that they would still get married in a forced happy ending. The moment you at least somewhat accepted that nonsense cancellation was also the moment you realize that they couldn't care less about being on the verge of a breakup, but hey let's get married nonetheless. And when this was solved, then Brauer's character sits there and tells them that his partner left him because she did not want to wreak any more havoc between father and son. More pseudo drama that is. Completely ridiculous. At least, Brauer has this okay moment early on with the cigarettes he hid away from his son. Maybe the best moment of the film, but also because everything else was so bad, not because it was particularly good. I also kinda liked the attempted murder idea with the bow and arrow and the boat trip at night. I am sure it was not meant like that, but they really thought this was realistic, but the morbid humor there entertained me nicely. Still needless to say that it had nothing to do with reality and also that the film would be way too scared to actually kill a character in the sense of pseudo harmony and happiness. The dog running away and being declared dead only to show up again seconds later at perfect health is as daring as it gets here. These little rascal characters trained him to do it. But they weren't even there to perform the trick. Yeah, it makes no sense. As for the wedding ceremony at the very end, the surprise I mentioned earlier was pretty catastrophic as well. Not in the sense of what happened, but how they depicted it. Or the face expression of the male protagonist when the priest says that if somebody is against the marriage, he shall speak now. Let me tell you: I am against everything in this movie, so I guess this includes the wedding too. By the way, said male protagonist is played by Michael von Au and while I am not familiar with the actor (in contrast to like five other cast members), I think that he did an okay job, in the face of the terrible material he was given here. He was the only one who can be considered lead here. He was not in the first film, which makes me even less curious about that one. I mean the character was, but another actor played him. Same applies to one or two or three other actors from the first film. Good choice from them I'd say. At least they realized how much of a mess this original movie was (in contrast to the likes of Speichert) and there is no justification at all for a sequel happening. Sigh. The only reason is probably that enough people watched the first film. Klaschka also wrote the script for that one, but Kubach was new here and her filmography is so poor overall that I must say I am glad she has been retired for a long time now and we don't get any more crappy films like this one here. At least not from her, but I feel the Herzkino (i.e. German garbage romance television film) industry has declined a bit in recent years. I hope this is true. It's disgusting to see how people are truly forced to pay money (every month a double-digit amount) for movies like this to be made. No hesitation for me here in giving this film a huge thumbs-down. Highly, highly not recommended. That's all. I hope I can forget about it as soon as possible. Do yourself a favor and skip the watch. Embarrassing enough that this is still shown on television so many years after its release. The only good thing here: Ziegler, Degeto and Klaschka never made a third movie, unfortunately only because they were too busy with other garbage projects.
Marriage is a key aspect in this film we have here. You can see that from the poster too. Of course, they once again got it all wrong. The highlight (i.e. lowlight) was really when the two protagonists were about to cancel their wedding and this was so out of nowhere and made absolutely no sense. Pseudo drama of the worst kind and it was 100% sure that they would still get married in a forced happy ending. The moment you at least somewhat accepted that nonsense cancellation was also the moment you realize that they couldn't care less about being on the verge of a breakup, but hey let's get married nonetheless. And when this was solved, then Brauer's character sits there and tells them that his partner left him because she did not want to wreak any more havoc between father and son. More pseudo drama that is. Completely ridiculous. At least, Brauer has this okay moment early on with the cigarettes he hid away from his son. Maybe the best moment of the film, but also because everything else was so bad, not because it was particularly good. I also kinda liked the attempted murder idea with the bow and arrow and the boat trip at night. I am sure it was not meant like that, but they really thought this was realistic, but the morbid humor there entertained me nicely. Still needless to say that it had nothing to do with reality and also that the film would be way too scared to actually kill a character in the sense of pseudo harmony and happiness. The dog running away and being declared dead only to show up again seconds later at perfect health is as daring as it gets here. These little rascal characters trained him to do it. But they weren't even there to perform the trick. Yeah, it makes no sense. As for the wedding ceremony at the very end, the surprise I mentioned earlier was pretty catastrophic as well. Not in the sense of what happened, but how they depicted it. Or the face expression of the male protagonist when the priest says that if somebody is against the marriage, he shall speak now. Let me tell you: I am against everything in this movie, so I guess this includes the wedding too. By the way, said male protagonist is played by Michael von Au and while I am not familiar with the actor (in contrast to like five other cast members), I think that he did an okay job, in the face of the terrible material he was given here. He was the only one who can be considered lead here. He was not in the first film, which makes me even less curious about that one. I mean the character was, but another actor played him. Same applies to one or two or three other actors from the first film. Good choice from them I'd say. At least they realized how much of a mess this original movie was (in contrast to the likes of Speichert) and there is no justification at all for a sequel happening. Sigh. The only reason is probably that enough people watched the first film. Klaschka also wrote the script for that one, but Kubach was new here and her filmography is so poor overall that I must say I am glad she has been retired for a long time now and we don't get any more crappy films like this one here. At least not from her, but I feel the Herzkino (i.e. German garbage romance television film) industry has declined a bit in recent years. I hope this is true. It's disgusting to see how people are truly forced to pay money (every month a double-digit amount) for movies like this to be made. No hesitation for me here in giving this film a huge thumbs-down. Highly, highly not recommended. That's all. I hope I can forget about it as soon as possible. Do yourself a favor and skip the watch. Embarrassing enough that this is still shown on television so many years after its release. The only good thing here: Ziegler, Degeto and Klaschka never made a third movie, unfortunately only because they were too busy with other garbage projects.