"Die grünen Hügel von Wales" is a German television film from 2010, November 2010 to be more precise, to this one is getting really close to its 10th anniversary, and maybe it happened already depending on when you read this review. It runs for almost 1.5 hours, which is the usual running time for films like this here in Germany and trust me there are many. But firstg things first: The director and two writers have worked on "Um Himmels Willen", "In aller Freundschaft", "Inga Lindström", "Das Traumschiff", Rosamunde Pilcher" and "Rote Rosen". Everybody who knows just a bit about German television will understand the gravity of this information, which means that basically the entire trio can be perfectly described as completely void of any talent. Normally I'd say that if we have two writers for a film, one should be able to at least slightly make sure the other does not make too many mistakes, but with these two women the opposite is true. I am pretty sure that whatever they had to criticize from each other's work, the correction was even worse than it was before. By the way, this film here is based on a book and I haven't read it, but I have a feeling it is also not the greatest piece of literature in world history honestly and more on the level of Pilcher/Lindström. The title is a bit of a problem too. Normally, they either have completely random titles that imply love and romance, but for like 10% of these films they also include geographics (such as "Eine Liebe in" and they are all horrible). This is one of them. The working title still made it more obvious that this location is also linked to the gold that lies below these hills as we find out towards the end, but maybe they realized themselves that this story is just too dumb and ridiculous to also obviously name the movie after that. Just kidding. Of course they didn't. That would imply they understood the slightest thing about filmmaking. However, with a film titled like this, you'd at least expect some nice nature photography, but the film comes short in this department as it does everywhere else. It is pretty typical also for films like this to shove beautiful animals into our faces, so we do not pay attention too much to the crucial flaws in the story, and here we get a majestic horse and a sheep on one occasion. Not too much, but certainly expected.
As for the cast: The main character is played by Julia Richter. While I agree that she is somewhat attractive, it is ridiculous that she seems to be able to build her entire career on that and get cast for lead roles. Oh well, at least she did back then, and numerous times even. She is not a good actress. I even struggle with calling her an actress at all. Her male counterpart here is palyed by Christoph M. Ohrt. I think he is slightly more talented, has some okay projects in his body of work, but also not a revelation to be honest. Same is true about pretty much everybody else from the cast here. The rest of the cast are not too famous (not even here in Germany), but they are all fairly prolific nonetheless. There are also British actors in here because of where the film is set and the dubbing is plain horrible no denying. Of course, also all the characters have British names (like in the book I guess) and this is especially cringeworthy when we have the main character for example respond to a phone call and say her name and that happens several times and every single time it felt as if this was supposed to give the film some aura of exquisiteness. It's just pplain embarrassing. Another thing I find pretty strange here that is probably also a stupidity in the book is how the characters have English names, not elsh names. Okay, now a few words on the story. Of course , Richter's character is constantly courted by men since the very beginning, which is pretty embarrassing to be honest. Everything about her character is, not just the banter with Orth's character, how she acts towards her childhood friend (who of course wants more than friendship) or the guy who wants to take a shower with her. It already started from the very beginning; poor girl was in Africa where her husband died, but she is a strong single mother (widow) now. In Africa, she also worked for a non-profit organization. She also made the decision alone to not go for the gold towards the end because it harms the environment. She does not want to sacrifice her financial independence for a man. She is offered a good job out of nowhere. And so on. In short, she is perfection. As always. Female audiences (yeah sorry, these are the ones who watch this garbage mostly, it's not a sexist statement) should adore her. And all the men are depicted in a negative light. Be it the one who did not mention he is not single, be it the one who wants to be more than friends or be it the one who is totally greedy and aggressive. By the way, are we really supposed to believe that Orth's character is physically superior to the latter? Look at them. Compare them. More nonsense. Apart from the really shoddy romance parts, the film also fails on all occasions when it comes to drama. This is true about the love interest having another woman, well at least on paper, although that falls under romance too. Never in doubt they'd still get together and there is a valid explanation. The gold references in the last third of the film are another example. Environment issues are really something they use frequently in this kind of films, the bad kind. You could say they found their very oown way to exploit nature. Funny because it goes exactly against what they are preaching. Oh yeah, another thing they use frequently is vanished kids. Here they rushed it in in the middle of the film. All for the sake of it. Just like the stupid twist how the two boys all of a sudden have an argument out of nowhere. And then later on get along so well again. The one thing I did like somehow was that they did not turn the former friend (who wants more) into an antagonist. This could have made the film even worse and more cringeworthy, although that would have been nearly impossible. Oh and finally, how dare you use Katie Melua's great musis for this abomination. Let me use this word to create some kind of frame to the beginning (i.e. title) of my review. Highly, highly not recommended. This one's a gigantic mess. Even too bad to be shown at noon on television.
As for the cast: The main character is played by Julia Richter. While I agree that she is somewhat attractive, it is ridiculous that she seems to be able to build her entire career on that and get cast for lead roles. Oh well, at least she did back then, and numerous times even. She is not a good actress. I even struggle with calling her an actress at all. Her male counterpart here is palyed by Christoph M. Ohrt. I think he is slightly more talented, has some okay projects in his body of work, but also not a revelation to be honest. Same is true about pretty much everybody else from the cast here. The rest of the cast are not too famous (not even here in Germany), but they are all fairly prolific nonetheless. There are also British actors in here because of where the film is set and the dubbing is plain horrible no denying. Of course, also all the characters have British names (like in the book I guess) and this is especially cringeworthy when we have the main character for example respond to a phone call and say her name and that happens several times and every single time it felt as if this was supposed to give the film some aura of exquisiteness. It's just pplain embarrassing. Another thing I find pretty strange here that is probably also a stupidity in the book is how the characters have English names, not elsh names. Okay, now a few words on the story. Of course , Richter's character is constantly courted by men since the very beginning, which is pretty embarrassing to be honest. Everything about her character is, not just the banter with Orth's character, how she acts towards her childhood friend (who of course wants more than friendship) or the guy who wants to take a shower with her. It already started from the very beginning; poor girl was in Africa where her husband died, but she is a strong single mother (widow) now. In Africa, she also worked for a non-profit organization. She also made the decision alone to not go for the gold towards the end because it harms the environment. She does not want to sacrifice her financial independence for a man. She is offered a good job out of nowhere. And so on. In short, she is perfection. As always. Female audiences (yeah sorry, these are the ones who watch this garbage mostly, it's not a sexist statement) should adore her. And all the men are depicted in a negative light. Be it the one who did not mention he is not single, be it the one who wants to be more than friends or be it the one who is totally greedy and aggressive. By the way, are we really supposed to believe that Orth's character is physically superior to the latter? Look at them. Compare them. More nonsense. Apart from the really shoddy romance parts, the film also fails on all occasions when it comes to drama. This is true about the love interest having another woman, well at least on paper, although that falls under romance too. Never in doubt they'd still get together and there is a valid explanation. The gold references in the last third of the film are another example. Environment issues are really something they use frequently in this kind of films, the bad kind. You could say they found their very oown way to exploit nature. Funny because it goes exactly against what they are preaching. Oh yeah, another thing they use frequently is vanished kids. Here they rushed it in in the middle of the film. All for the sake of it. Just like the stupid twist how the two boys all of a sudden have an argument out of nowhere. And then later on get along so well again. The one thing I did like somehow was that they did not turn the former friend (who wants more) into an antagonist. This could have made the film even worse and more cringeworthy, although that would have been nearly impossible. Oh and finally, how dare you use Katie Melua's great musis for this abomination. Let me use this word to create some kind of frame to the beginning (i.e. title) of my review. Highly, highly not recommended. This one's a gigantic mess. Even too bad to be shown at noon on television.
