User Reviews

"As housekeeper and secretary Madre Pascalina managed to create the human living space for Pius XII, which he needed, to fulfill his duties in a difficult time" (Benedict XVI)

I have decided to begin my review with Benedict XVI's words because they accurately address the very gist of who this humble and yet powerful and rock-willed person was. Seeing her as "the most powerful Bavarian ever in the Vatican," the Bavarian Pope's words have been practically yet implicitly incorporated into the portrayal displayed in this TV production.

Yes, Marcus Rosemueller's movie, with its length and almost clichéd features, bears resemblance with plenty of TV-productions - biopics primarily concerned with illustrations of an eminent figure and their world seen from the outside. They hardly tend to show anything insightful or intensely psychological. Premiering on German TV two years ago in two parts, it raised contradictory opinions among the critics. Beginning, actually, in media res at the Vatican on 19th July 1943 with the flashback to one Bavarian village Ebersberg in 1912, it gives a viewer a glimpse of what personality and what turmoiled storytelling they are going to see. Indeed, 'a difficult time' (with reference to the quotation)

TYPICAL BIOPIC: In that respect, GOTTESMAECHTIGE DIENERIN, which could be translated as a 'a female servant granted strength by God,' sister Pascalina Lehnert (1896-1983), with her determination and motivation, appears to be 'a female servant of cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII)' In him, she sees the light for her motives and the target she desires to serve overcoming various obstacles. Her destiny filled with lessons of upgrading and lessons of suffering and penance beautifully correspond to those dramatic tensions. The most difficult obstacle, perhaps, will be edging her way within 'no town for women,' the Vatican, in order to make it put up with being 'a town with one exceptional woman.'

Much credit to Christine Neubauer who portrays the 'powerful Bavarian' with charm, wit, vibrant energy and imagination. She creates a sympathetic character who does not disappoint us in her concrete walk forward. Mind you she never remains in one place, she is never 'stopped.' Particularly memorable when taking risks to hitchhike to Rome or informing the pope about lunch while he talks to the British Ambassador as well as at quite difficult scenes with Mother Superior, Ms Neubauer delivers something deliciously edgy for a nun character. In the whole sequence at Altoetting where she belongs to the Order of Holy Cross, we see many scenes echoing old Hollywood 'nun movies' like NUN'S STORY with Audrey Hepburn where earthly tensions blend with godly passions. In a way, Ms Neubauer combines the worldly with the heavenly, though. She is particularly funny as the caring cook (disgusted by any hints of dedication shortage) and, later, the relations with one Monsignor Wilson (Wilfried Hochholdinger) at the Vatican who, finally, resorts to tolerance. There is light in her life and there are moments of sorrows. But the portrayal would not truly evoke historical accurateness if it were not for her 'male partner' in the role, Remo Girone who plays the last 'monarch' in the Holy See, the one whose throne seemed to be a radiant glory of 20 centuries, pope Pius XII.

In looks he does not resemble Papa Pacelli but in modesty combined with almost kingly manners, Mr Girone does a pretty good job. His role is somehow based on two dimensions: first, in his relation to Sister Pascalina (he teaches her forgiveness when encouraging her to go to her dying father - the symbolic bird between the two is a cute indication to pure relation), his aid and his spiritual friend; second, in his relation to the Bavaria of the times (while he is nuncios and plays a historic role in the Concordate with the Holy See) and the world of the times (while he is the Secretary of State during the pontiff of Pius XI and the Supreme Pontiff - 1939-1958). All events, historical events are in the background but they influence the characters placing them rightly in the historical realities. Something typical for such production...time is indicated by papal portraits on walls starting with Benedict XV who made Pacelli a bishop. I am glad there is a mention of Vatican's outright opposition to Fascism expressed in Pius XI's encyclicals MIT BRENNENDER SORGE as well as Jews being rescued and saved at the Vatican during the war. Although there is a controversial moment when Pius XII prefers to keep silence about the Holocaust, the portrayal is overall satisfactory.

And something that is a necessary aspect in a TV production like this: wit - even at the face of monarch-like Pope Pius XI when Sister Pascalina is granted a private audience and quotes...Bertholt Brecht. And in many other scenes that surprise viewers and make them laugh.

An interesting biopic, maybe too long but well worth watching in two parts as morally, pleasantly, historically, biographically educational stuff.

"Gottes mächtige Dienerin" or "God's Mighty Servant" is a German German-language television film from 2011 and actually this consists of two parts of 90 minutes each, so it runs for a total of three hours and I guess they took this direction because the subject is pretty epic and with that I do mean the central character, but the Pope as well es Catholic Church as a whole. The director and one of the writers is Marcus O. Rosenmüller, a really prolific filmmaker back then as well as today. The O in his name is there to make clear it him because there is another successful filmmaker Marcus Rosenmüller. So much for the basics. The name Rosenmüller clearly implies that he is rather from the south of Germany because nobody whho originates from Kiel or Hamburg would be named like that, so I am a bit surprised to see he was born in Duisburg. Maybe his family is from the south. But it is not too important either. I was just wondering if his origin is maybe the main reason why Bavarian actress Christine Neubauer was cast for the central character. I mean she has been the lead in many films (God knows why, no oun intended), but leading a film like this her being picked for the central character does surprise me for sure. And it turned out as expected. She was simply horrible at times, probably did not even manage to get in more than five different face expressions in almost 180 minutes and she ws literally in almost every scene, so that says it all. Still props to Rosenmüller because his direction and also screenplay still made this a good film at times and he even managed to direct some scenes where Neubauer was not making the material worse with her lack of range. Most of the time, however, it was fairly painful to watch her because you could sometimes see she was really trying to make an impact and give a good performance, but she simply doesn't have the acting chops. So her performance here would only be 1 star out of 5. But the film gets two from me because aside from her, there are no major weaknesses and with a better lead it could have been an actually fairly good film.

This mostly has to do with Remo Girone, the male co-lead here. He is really good in most of his scenes and it was a delight to see him on screen. Actually, he played Enzo Ferrari in the most recent Le Mans movie starring Christian Bale and Matt Damon, so good to see him also being cast on a successful Hollywood movie. But now back to this one here. All in all, the script was okay, even if there were still moments of weakness there too. For example I thought the ways in which all the antagonists were depicted was really shallow, uncreative and lacked attention to detail. Be it the other nun who would not get the wine out of the clothes, be it Monsignore Wilson (that was really bad at times) or be it Mrs. Miller. The ways in which the filmmakers here wanted us to like the title character and not the people who opposed her for whatever reason were not convincing and showed weaknesses in quality character writing. But it would have been worse if it had been just one supreme antagonist because that really could have hurt the film even more. This way it was somewhat okay and scenes like the one when Neubauer's character is there taking the attention away from Wilson or how Miller (who of course gets along very well with Wilson) cannot remember Pascalina's name are not necessarily easy to stomach, but can be tolerated. And we get it, she is not good with people. Still, what could not be tolerated and was almost a negative dealbreaker for me was towards the ending when they turn her into basically almost a female Oskar Schindler. Now that was truly cringeworthy. Once again Neubauer giving it her all trying so hard to do justice to the serious historically relevant material and she came oh so short. They clearly did not do her or the film a favor with thiese inclusions, even if of course I get it they had to pick them because this was just such a crucial issue during the reign of this pope. At the same time, it was still nice to see how effortlessly Girone managed the challenging material. The scene with the German who warns his character that he could get abducted was also key. And Girone nailed it while Neubauer created a messy spectacle again outside before the German may enter. I felt a bit sorry for Hochholdinger there he had to share the screen with Neubauer in that scene. Nobody could have saved it really. So yeah these are my words on "Gottes möchtige Dienerin". All in all, they basically sank the project to the ground when casting Neubauer already before production started and even if the filmmakers here managed to save it to some extent, I cannot forgive them for that decision, which was just a massive failure. This film luckily isn't, but aside from Girone's performance and also the fact that this is based on real events and a real pope there is not too much reason to see it. It's a thumbs-down from me overall.