"Immer Wirbel um Marie" (working title: "Wer zuletzt lacht") is a German television film from 2008, so these 1.5 hours are already over a decade old. The director was Ariane Zeller, who is still occasionally shooting ne films nowadays, but if you take a look at her body of work, especially in the 00s, then you will see immediately that there is no great quality to her works. Actually, there is no quality at all. And if we combine her lack of talent with the two writers here, Hajos and Fischer and these two probably have even less talent with their "Marienhof" history, then it is no surprise at all that this film we have here became an uninspired mess. On the photo you see Marianne Sägebrecht and she certainly looks younger there than in her early 60s which she actually was when this film was made, probably severe image corrections in there and also in the film, she does not look this young, but, on the contrary, she has always been an actress who looked older than she actually was. Not sure if this is still the case now that she is 75, but it was back then in pretty much everything i saw her in. The age is the least of her problems though. Her one and only big problem is that she can really only play one single character and this is the character she played since her (international) breakthrough in the mid-80s. This is also what I am referring to in the title of my review. She usually play a chubby kind lady that is too good for the world and self-sacrificing to some extent, but does not get the love she gives from most of the characters. However, it is her universal goodness that eventually lets her win the hearts of those characters that are not 100% likable, even slightly on the despicable side. In this movie here, this mostly applies to Christoph M. Ohrt, another actor who has been in many trash movies, but somehow I still like him a bit. Probably thanks to his charisma. His range it is not I'd say. Nonetheless, even if his name maybe as known as Sägebrecht's here in Germany right now, this film is never about him. Always about Sägebrecht. His character is also written as poorly as everybody else. The first meeting between him and the female protagonist is already cringeworthy when we have Sägebrecht's character correct him about what a teddy bear has to look like. Her character works at a stuffed animal toy factory where everything is handmade still and the bears are not mass production, but there is of course a lot of heart in them and of course Marie makes all these kids happy with her craft. Like I said: The ultimate good.
There are more scenes that are cringeworthy, like how she is the one that initiates a birthday present for a colleague. She is the one that Ohrt's character's son opens up to and eventually wants to be with. She is the one that managed to integrate Eva Haßmann's character into the group. With all her heart! Haßmann is a terrible actress by the way. good that she has so little screen time here. There are many female actors in here, all the colleagues basically. tatjana Alexander is another one that is really easy to identify by everybody who has seen (and liked) "Stromberg". Yep, it's Berkel. Pretty sad that she has to appear in garbage films like this one here nowadays. Sarah Alles (interesting last name) could have given everything in this movie, but not even the most talented actress could have made her really poorly written character work. Marie Gruber is one that also some German film buffs will recognize, but not too much to say about her here. Also away from Sägebrecht's character when there is focus on others too, this movie is a mess. Just take the example how everybody in the factory hears the phone conversation in which Ohrt's character talks about his real motives or how he basically understands he was always in the wrong and supports Marie eventually. Or the entire music plot with the concert at the end that was so bad, but we are supposed it is charming because of the imperfections. Or the story about the newspaper guy. No matter where you look here, it is all a mess. A travesty. Actually, this film is a sequel and I watched the first film earlier this year and looking at my review from back then, that one was obviously already as bad as this one here. So two films got made when one was already one enough. Embarrassing. Then again, like I said: Sägebrecht plays the same character in every film, so you could also call the Marga Engel films from a few years earlier prequels to this one here. At least in practice. Not in theory, but hey 60% of the first name apply as well. Also there is a lot of misandry in here. No matter if we are talking about the needy guy who clearly has a bit of a romantic interest in Marie (really felt sorry for the actor there, but maybe I shouldn't because nobody forced him to accept the part), Ohrt's character (first a villain, then a string puppet) or the unseen actual villain who has evil plans for the teddy factory, it's not good to be a man in this movie. Just like it almost never is in these crappy ARD Degeto productions. And the women are of course angels like Marie or at least super creative (yep!) with their cool music number at the end. And of course when Marie is in danger of losing everything, the other women stand up for their likable queen. Sigh. I just can't. Shameful stuff that films like this are even made, but even more shameful that they are still shown so many years afterwards. This one gets a fat thumbs-down from me. It is an abomination and I am not exaggerating. It is indeed this bad. Highly not recommended. Only good thing here is that they did not make a third.
There are more scenes that are cringeworthy, like how she is the one that initiates a birthday present for a colleague. She is the one that Ohrt's character's son opens up to and eventually wants to be with. She is the one that managed to integrate Eva Haßmann's character into the group. With all her heart! Haßmann is a terrible actress by the way. good that she has so little screen time here. There are many female actors in here, all the colleagues basically. tatjana Alexander is another one that is really easy to identify by everybody who has seen (and liked) "Stromberg". Yep, it's Berkel. Pretty sad that she has to appear in garbage films like this one here nowadays. Sarah Alles (interesting last name) could have given everything in this movie, but not even the most talented actress could have made her really poorly written character work. Marie Gruber is one that also some German film buffs will recognize, but not too much to say about her here. Also away from Sägebrecht's character when there is focus on others too, this movie is a mess. Just take the example how everybody in the factory hears the phone conversation in which Ohrt's character talks about his real motives or how he basically understands he was always in the wrong and supports Marie eventually. Or the entire music plot with the concert at the end that was so bad, but we are supposed it is charming because of the imperfections. Or the story about the newspaper guy. No matter where you look here, it is all a mess. A travesty. Actually, this film is a sequel and I watched the first film earlier this year and looking at my review from back then, that one was obviously already as bad as this one here. So two films got made when one was already one enough. Embarrassing. Then again, like I said: Sägebrecht plays the same character in every film, so you could also call the Marga Engel films from a few years earlier prequels to this one here. At least in practice. Not in theory, but hey 60% of the first name apply as well. Also there is a lot of misandry in here. No matter if we are talking about the needy guy who clearly has a bit of a romantic interest in Marie (really felt sorry for the actor there, but maybe I shouldn't because nobody forced him to accept the part), Ohrt's character (first a villain, then a string puppet) or the unseen actual villain who has evil plans for the teddy factory, it's not good to be a man in this movie. Just like it almost never is in these crappy ARD Degeto productions. And the women are of course angels like Marie or at least super creative (yep!) with their cool music number at the end. And of course when Marie is in danger of losing everything, the other women stand up for their likable queen. Sigh. I just can't. Shameful stuff that films like this are even made, but even more shameful that they are still shown so many years afterwards. This one gets a fat thumbs-down from me. It is an abomination and I am not exaggerating. It is indeed this bad. Highly not recommended. Only good thing here is that they did not make a third.
