"Familie für Fortgeschrittene" or "Familie auf Probe" or (the international title) "Family 2.0" is a German television film from 2011, so this one will soon have its 10th anniversary. The director is René Heisig, the writer is Silke Steiner. The former is definitely more prolific than the latter, but both have worked on rather weak projects in general, so your expectations for this one here should be really low and even if they are, then these 1.5 hours will probably disappoint you. It is not a good film by any means. Lead actors Cukrowski and Schubert are somewhat known here in Germany, maybe some film buffs even know Fitz, but that is really it in terms of the cast. Still no need for a famous cast if the screenplay is fine. Well, it is not. And that becomes painfully obvious and it is somewhat impressive in a negative way how Cukrowski actually managed the almost impossible to make certain lines look even worse than they already were with her weak line delivery. Schubert did better there for sure, but not even the most talented actors could have turned this film into quality. It is basically about a couple around the age of 40 who live together and who both have children, so the epitome of a patchwork family we get here. Several conflicts arise from that. One girl really struggles at school and wants to quit and the two grown-ups have different opinions about that. The other girl is falling for another student from her class, but that turns out complicated as well. And at the same time the parents have their own struggles, like the woman has to accept a loan and tha man is maybe not too happy about moving to the woman's place. And there is more. For example the man is a widower and his late wife was really perfect with which his new woman is struggling too. This was a sob story, by the way, that felt very much for the sake of it all. Not convincing from any perspective. The weakest moment was probably when the blonde daughter complains about how it is not fair that all the other kids still have their mothers and she doesn't. She is not incorrect, but the quote how it was written and included combined with the girl's abysmal line delivery just really really hurt that moment and it's cringeworthy because the film even took itself so seriously on that occasions. Actually takes itself very seriously overall.
There is also a main antagonist, even if I would not call him a villain. It is the woman's former partner and father of the girl who struggles so hard at school. He is involved mostly when there is discussion about what to do with the girl. We also find out on one occasion that he had an affair with one of his employees that resulted in him breaking up back then with Cukrowski's character. And there are indicators that he wants her back. And there are indicators that he enjoys having power over her and that is why he offers her money and not because he wants to help her in fact, even if he acts as if he is just a good Samaritan. So yeah, here they really took the most simple approach in how they anted the audience to dislike the fella. Really oozes lack of talent. You see that on many other occasions. Just take the idea how Schubert's character is presented to us (and his new class) as a teacher, how he is is too late, but the kids like him immediately because he is so progressive, also much more progressive than the other female teacher we see on one occasion, the one who teaches the two girls. As for Schubert's character, let me tell you that in 13 years of school I never had a teacher who introduced himself with his first name. Again, more lack of realism here in exchange for pseudo coolness. These are the lighter moments. The more dramatic moments include a sequence when the daughter who is struggling at school runs away from home. Oh well, that was so poorly written and for the sake of it. It almost felt as if they realized so themselves and just stopped this twist immediately afterwards. And finally, the moment when the movie really hits rock bottom is when the two gron-ups after showing us how happy they are with each other break up all out of nowhere and he moves out immediately back to where he was from originally. No elaborations on what happened with his new teacher job, no elaborations on how he found a new apartment so quickly, nothing. Just ridiculous. Like I said, the audience must be really simple to dig (or even) believe this nonsense. Of course, there is also a forced happy ending eventually with her standing at his door when she calls him. I saw it coming when the bell rang, but I really hoped they would not stoop this low. They did. By the way, as for the earlier scene with the girl who wants to leave school, it was interesting to see how the writer was stuck between the path she wanted to take and the fear that maybe parents would not like this idea at all because it could plant a thought into their children's mind. A deadly cocktail really together with the writer's extremely apparent lack of creativity and talent. Well, if they let their children watch this abomination of a film, then they do not deserve it any other way. Or if they watch it themselves. They should just skip it. And so should you. Take a look at the bodies of work from the writer and director as well as the bodies of work from Cukrowski and, to a lesser extent, Schubert. Many weak projects included there too. Their combined effort here is an outcome that you want to skip in any case. Highly not recommended and good to see Heisig has not worked on new projects (according to imdb) since 2013. At his age, I honestly don't think there is much hope that he will come up with something convincing out of nowhere, although the one who is more to blame here is writer Steiner and sadly, she still seems to be finding work. Boo! At least they did not make a sequel to this one here.
There is also a main antagonist, even if I would not call him a villain. It is the woman's former partner and father of the girl who struggles so hard at school. He is involved mostly when there is discussion about what to do with the girl. We also find out on one occasion that he had an affair with one of his employees that resulted in him breaking up back then with Cukrowski's character. And there are indicators that he wants her back. And there are indicators that he enjoys having power over her and that is why he offers her money and not because he wants to help her in fact, even if he acts as if he is just a good Samaritan. So yeah, here they really took the most simple approach in how they anted the audience to dislike the fella. Really oozes lack of talent. You see that on many other occasions. Just take the idea how Schubert's character is presented to us (and his new class) as a teacher, how he is is too late, but the kids like him immediately because he is so progressive, also much more progressive than the other female teacher we see on one occasion, the one who teaches the two girls. As for Schubert's character, let me tell you that in 13 years of school I never had a teacher who introduced himself with his first name. Again, more lack of realism here in exchange for pseudo coolness. These are the lighter moments. The more dramatic moments include a sequence when the daughter who is struggling at school runs away from home. Oh well, that was so poorly written and for the sake of it. It almost felt as if they realized so themselves and just stopped this twist immediately afterwards. And finally, the moment when the movie really hits rock bottom is when the two gron-ups after showing us how happy they are with each other break up all out of nowhere and he moves out immediately back to where he was from originally. No elaborations on what happened with his new teacher job, no elaborations on how he found a new apartment so quickly, nothing. Just ridiculous. Like I said, the audience must be really simple to dig (or even) believe this nonsense. Of course, there is also a forced happy ending eventually with her standing at his door when she calls him. I saw it coming when the bell rang, but I really hoped they would not stoop this low. They did. By the way, as for the earlier scene with the girl who wants to leave school, it was interesting to see how the writer was stuck between the path she wanted to take and the fear that maybe parents would not like this idea at all because it could plant a thought into their children's mind. A deadly cocktail really together with the writer's extremely apparent lack of creativity and talent. Well, if they let their children watch this abomination of a film, then they do not deserve it any other way. Or if they watch it themselves. They should just skip it. And so should you. Take a look at the bodies of work from the writer and director as well as the bodies of work from Cukrowski and, to a lesser extent, Schubert. Many weak projects included there too. Their combined effort here is an outcome that you want to skip in any case. Highly not recommended and good to see Heisig has not worked on new projects (according to imdb) since 2013. At his age, I honestly don't think there is much hope that he will come up with something convincing out of nowhere, although the one who is more to blame here is writer Steiner and sadly, she still seems to be finding work. Boo! At least they did not make a sequel to this one here.
