"Nur mit Dir zusammen", which means "only together with you" (what an informative title... could be use for millions of movies and 99.999% of all romance movies), is a German television film from 2020, so a really new release that premiered tonight at prime time. Director is Stefan Bühling and he is fairly experienced, although his involvement with several German daily soap opera should tell you what to expect here quality-wise. The writer is Judith Westermann and she has not been that prolific, but also still has some projects of low-quality in her body of work that she has worked on before. Don't worry if you have never heard of the duo. You should worry more if you actually have. The stars here are the two actors at the center of the story. Or I should maybe say two of the three. The one more in the center than everybody else is played by Vanessa Mai. She is among the most successful singers from my country at this point and I guess her popularity with fans resulted in them saying why not. Maybe she can attract enough viewers for a film as well. If Silbereisen is the new Traumschiff captain, why not give her a chance as well. In her fevor I must say, she was not as bad as I expected and the story was so soulless (despite trying to be the exact opposite) that no other actress could have made the part work. That said, I still must add that she really did not give a good performance. She lacked energy altogether (when she was not wildly dancing for no further reason) and her line delivery was as stale as it gets. Her father here was played by Axel Prahl. Now he is very famous here in Germany thanks to Tatort and as a consequence, he keeps showing up in all kinds of other ARD films from time to time. This is one example. Most of them are not really good. This one here is pretty bad. I also think he does not have too much range, but he is likable, has lots of charisma and also more recognition value than everybody else basically you will see on the small screen here in Germany and that explains his success. I guess with his performance here you can see he does what is asked of him, but nothing more. Maybe he realized that there's no way he can make this script work.
There are really many bad moments in here. The best example is basically everything at the film's core. The romance relationship woth the doctor (who of course has no clue who she is because he likes rock music. how cool!!!) is a bad joke from beginning to end and I have rarely seen as much cringe in a film like here when it comes to romance. It already starts with the really small room or elevator or what it is early on and of course everybody knew immediately they'd get together in the end. I guess this is also supposed to make us cope with the more sad and more dramatic stuff that happens before the curtain falls. I won't go into detail to avoid spoilers here, but let me say that they just really wanted to get the audience all emotional with how things turn out in the end. Sadly, they do not get in even 1% of the talent and creativity to actually evoke such a reaction. It all rings false and for the sake of it and for the simple-minded. Then again, those people who like Böhmermann and heute-show maybe fall into exactly this category. Congrats to you if you don't count among this "illustrious" group. And I mean it like that. So yeah, the whole father-daughter story here is so shoddily executed from beginning to end, it painful to watch and almost offensive to those who really stuggle hard in said relationship. Some people will say those that it is exactly those who can make a connection with this film, but I say it is exactly those who won't because they know what they see here has nothing to do with reality. And don't even get me started on the pseudo-dramatic kidney plot with the girl being really sick. I think doctors will laugh at that. Apart from that, I don't really want to comment on the rest oof the cast. Two exceptions though: Ferdinand Seebacher has a lot of screen time, but he is really forgettable too. He is just on par with the weak quality overall here. But not as bad as Elena Uhlig. Oh boy (no pun intended). Has this actress ever heard about subtlety. Saw her in another film not too long ago and she was just as unbearable there as she was here. Luckily in this one here, she really did not have a lot of screen time. But when she did, I had to look away.
To sum it all up, you can definitely say about this film that this was (as I stated earlier) an attempt to turn singer Mai (who in my opinion is really pretty, but does not have a special voice at all) into a motion picture star too, at least for television. It did not go well. I don't know what they were doing here, maybe trying to give us a German take on the recent Lady Gaga film that was a big success, but this one here is clearly worse and as I thought the Gaga film was pretty overrated too, this says it all. This one here is a mess. The longer it goes, the more bland and boring it gets. The worst thing is probably that you can feel they were really aspiring, but nothing fit together. To be specific here, the scenes when we hear Prahl's character sing (that stupid story that he was once a star come on his voice has zero star potential and of course the good doctor knows him from back then...) and at the same time dance Mai's on a roof where just one occasion when the film hit rock-bottom. Or also without Prahl this referes to the roof dancing, the roof scenes in general in fact, also when the two kiss up there. The good news is that there the film would soon be over at least, now that they are together. Other shoddy inclusions include Prahl's character's declining health and also the story about the singer not being allowed to include those songs that she wrote herself on the album. The latter of course also gets "nice" closure at the end. Sorry, but I fail to believe we see a talented singer here, but oh well maybe I just demand too much, for after all Mai is also really successful in real life with her Stimmchen. Okay, that should be all now. You know where I stand if you have reached this point (or only read the title of my review). It's a travesty that ARD and ZDF force people to pay money to them and what they come up with is (lack of) quality like displayed in this film here from really every angle. This film is not even good enough for German noon television and they want us to think it is good enough for prime time. Don't be fooled. Major thumbs-down. The first really horribly 2020 release I have come across.
There are really many bad moments in here. The best example is basically everything at the film's core. The romance relationship woth the doctor (who of course has no clue who she is because he likes rock music. how cool!!!) is a bad joke from beginning to end and I have rarely seen as much cringe in a film like here when it comes to romance. It already starts with the really small room or elevator or what it is early on and of course everybody knew immediately they'd get together in the end. I guess this is also supposed to make us cope with the more sad and more dramatic stuff that happens before the curtain falls. I won't go into detail to avoid spoilers here, but let me say that they just really wanted to get the audience all emotional with how things turn out in the end. Sadly, they do not get in even 1% of the talent and creativity to actually evoke such a reaction. It all rings false and for the sake of it and for the simple-minded. Then again, those people who like Böhmermann and heute-show maybe fall into exactly this category. Congrats to you if you don't count among this "illustrious" group. And I mean it like that. So yeah, the whole father-daughter story here is so shoddily executed from beginning to end, it painful to watch and almost offensive to those who really stuggle hard in said relationship. Some people will say those that it is exactly those who can make a connection with this film, but I say it is exactly those who won't because they know what they see here has nothing to do with reality. And don't even get me started on the pseudo-dramatic kidney plot with the girl being really sick. I think doctors will laugh at that. Apart from that, I don't really want to comment on the rest oof the cast. Two exceptions though: Ferdinand Seebacher has a lot of screen time, but he is really forgettable too. He is just on par with the weak quality overall here. But not as bad as Elena Uhlig. Oh boy (no pun intended). Has this actress ever heard about subtlety. Saw her in another film not too long ago and she was just as unbearable there as she was here. Luckily in this one here, she really did not have a lot of screen time. But when she did, I had to look away.
To sum it all up, you can definitely say about this film that this was (as I stated earlier) an attempt to turn singer Mai (who in my opinion is really pretty, but does not have a special voice at all) into a motion picture star too, at least for television. It did not go well. I don't know what they were doing here, maybe trying to give us a German take on the recent Lady Gaga film that was a big success, but this one here is clearly worse and as I thought the Gaga film was pretty overrated too, this says it all. This one here is a mess. The longer it goes, the more bland and boring it gets. The worst thing is probably that you can feel they were really aspiring, but nothing fit together. To be specific here, the scenes when we hear Prahl's character sing (that stupid story that he was once a star come on his voice has zero star potential and of course the good doctor knows him from back then...) and at the same time dance Mai's on a roof where just one occasion when the film hit rock-bottom. Or also without Prahl this referes to the roof dancing, the roof scenes in general in fact, also when the two kiss up there. The good news is that there the film would soon be over at least, now that they are together. Other shoddy inclusions include Prahl's character's declining health and also the story about the singer not being allowed to include those songs that she wrote herself on the album. The latter of course also gets "nice" closure at the end. Sorry, but I fail to believe we see a talented singer here, but oh well maybe I just demand too much, for after all Mai is also really successful in real life with her Stimmchen. Okay, that should be all now. You know where I stand if you have reached this point (or only read the title of my review). It's a travesty that ARD and ZDF force people to pay money to them and what they come up with is (lack of) quality like displayed in this film here from really every angle. This film is not even good enough for German noon television and they want us to think it is good enough for prime time. Don't be fooled. Major thumbs-down. The first really horribly 2020 release I have come across.
