"Alle Zeit der Welt", which obviously means "All the time in the world" is a German television film from 2011, so this one has its tenth anniversary this year, in October to be precise. It is an ARD production, so it runs for the usual slightly under 1.5 hours. ARD Degeto was involved with this again too, so you can only expect the worst really. The director here was Andrea Katzenberger, apparently not related to Daniela, and the most interesting thing about her is that her very first of only three acting credits back in the 1990s was a role in Pepe Danquart's Oscar-winning short film Schwarzfahrer. She stopped acting quickly though and never returned to it, instead focused on directing herself. Occasionally on writing as well, but not here. For that, they got Martin Kluger and Maureen Herzfeld on board. The former had already been in the industry for two decades back then and the latter for slightly over one decade. Nothing positive I can say about her body of work. His is slightly better, but also really only at the very beginning of his career and sad to see the uninspired road he went down afterwards which focused almost entirely on making as much cash as possible from everybody's GEZ money it seems. No artistic challenges at all. This film here is the best example. Before I move on to the cast, a few more words on this film's background. The very first shot makes it obvious already that what you see in here is all somewhat linked to watches and clocks and time. The title is of course also a reference to that and a little metaphor. Well, not really. Instead, it is just as uninspired because the meaning of this metaphor is nothing really linked to the film and plot at all and was only used because it was probably the first thing that came to mind with references to time. So this shows you the artistic integrity that comes with this movie. Or lack thereof.
First credit here is Katja Weitzenböck and the one thing I immediately think of when seeing her or hearing her name is that she was born in Japan. Her career, however, started with French films in which she played minor parts next to Clavier, Reno and Adjani. Not too shabby. But this is all the positive I can say. Quickly afterwards, she switched to German movies (as you would guess with her name) and dished out one terrible project after the next. I cannot even blame her. I have seen her in quite a few films by now already and there is no range or versatility to her characters, so she is a really limited performer I would say. But she managed a long career in the industry nonetheless despite playing pretty much the same character in every movie. The ones really to blame are those that keep picking her, even for lead roles like with this film here. She may not be as terrible here at times as she is in most other movies, but gently-speaking she still isn't a revelation either. The male lead here, Johannes Herrschmann, is probably not as known as Weitzenböck, but he has enjoyed a long career too and for example also been in the Oscar-nominated Sophie Scholl movie. I think his physicality here helps, but his character and performance are certainly among the more likable aspects from this film. Not that it means a lot because that is mostly because everything else is fairly terrible. And probably my personal background also made it easy to like the character. Heikko Deutschmann, the probably biggest supporting player, is one where I think I remember the name at least, the face not so much, but his turn was also okay, especially given how terrible the script feels at times. Luckily for him, he is not in one of the most cringeworthy scenes. or at least does not play a vital role there. Diana Körner I am surprise to see she was in Barry Lyndon, a film that won many Oscars, back in the day, but this means it is also sad that she is now in stuff like this, Rote Rosen and Rosamunde Pilcher adaptations. Finally, the young actress is Minna Markert. Easy on the eye, but this was her first of only two films with the second being from 2015, so it seems she is leading a life away from the film industry now.
Speaking of plot and story here, you can see from my really low rating (actually the lowest possible for me because I don't give out 1/10) that I thought it was a pretty terrible watch for the most part- The comedy did not work well at all and there were almost no exceptions. The drama aspect was there, but it felt only like playing the second fiddle. Nonetheless, they expect the full range of emotions from the audience near the end when the two main characters are apparently not becoming an item because of their problems and then of course at the very end when they do. This is always the case with Degeto pretty much and each and every single time, it feels extremely fake and unrealistic. I will get into detail about that later on. The premise here is that we have a clockmaker, actually a fella who repairs clocks, and his employee and he lies to his brother for some (nonsense) reason that he is married, so his colleague has to play his spouse when the brother shows up to see what his brother is doing in life. Of course, our protagonist is a dedicated clockmaker and the other fella just focuses on cheap watches from Asia. Could have been enough reason to think the brother is a real antagonist here, especially if we take a look at how touchy he is with his brother (as he assumes) wife. But nope, he turns out to be a nice guy too eventually. Really encourages his brother to go for the girl at the very end in some rather cringeworthy pep talk. That was more due to the writing though again than to the acting. Not even the best actors on the planet could have made this scene/movie work. So this is the general premise bascially.
If we look at the male protagonist's lack of experience with women or people in general, the scene in which he asks the woman to be his wife (for a while) was still mildly funny, but if we also take into accountthe scene before in which he says he wants to ask her something, it was pretty much all on the cringeworthy side. How he says now, later, now, later. Eventually, they start to prepare the little fake performance and there I wondered how dumb they are. Like the daughter of the female protagonist has to tell them everything. The background of their relationship (always cringeworthy when characters respond differently to the same questions), that she must know where to find stuff in their home and it also takes ages until they finally realize they also need rings. Sigh. So poor. But it was also the small moments away from that where the film sucked. Take the phone call which the female protagonist answers with her real name. So expected. Or also take the very first scene of the female protagonist at the store when she is busy with a client and how he hits on her is really unwatchable. A key moment for me in deciding that this is nnot a weak film, but a bad film. ARD Degeto always has their thing with depicting males as highly unlikable and caring only for one thing really. The touchy brother is another great example. Or also how the male protagonist messes up everything because of ridiculous jealousy reasons. The anti-male message may not be as strong in this film as it is in other ARD movies, but it is there nonetheless. Weitzenböck's character is basically flawless with her behavior as it is always the case with female protagonists in these films. There is nothing wrong with the daughter either. On the contrary, the girl's (first) boyfriend is depicted like a man already who also indirectly says he won't be faithful. More misandry. This subplot honestly also was a complete joke and so embarrassing to watch.
The very worst thing about this film, however, is by far the happy closure at the end. When the man decides to go up there to stop the clock, I cringed already. But what follows is even worse. The woman shows up there too of course and they throw deep and meaningful phrases at each other. "The humans' angel is time." by Schiller Or how she won't say no to a man that can stop time. Oh my. Unwatchable really, also with usual bad soundtrack you always find in these films. Besides, the ring moment already implies that marriage may be a thing soon. Not exaggerated at all. Or that she will basically move in with him. Oh yes, some more brainstorming. Showing us what kind of food the fella has in his kitchen was also an anti-male stereotype again, even if the daughter's words took some misandry out of this scene telling us that it is also not all perfect with her mother at home. Then the female protagonist is of course so good that within hours apparently, she has a new job potentially coming up in Hamburg out of nowhere. Anything I really liked about this film? Well, that they kept the drama rather low. For example, in films with kids we almost always get pseudo drama with the small ones running away. Not so here. Luckily. The girl's plot was still bad as I already stated. The dog was pretty cool though, even if it had no impact on the story. And I really wondered with how there were no people around at all and the film had many scenes outside, especially in the second half or also at the end. I don't mean up there where the two have the reunion obviously, but when the male protagonist is with the female protagonist's daughter right before that. Or also at the cemetery. I don't know where all the GEZ money goes, but the one direction where it certainly doesn't go is to turn these films into at least a semi realistic watch. Major thumbs-down for the outcome here. One more example of that is the moment when the female protagonist's mother shows up and the cringe there. How stupid can the brother be to still not see what's going on. To sum it all up, the likable male protagonist alone is by far not enough to watch this film. Absolutely skip and this should really not be on national television anymore after all these years.
First credit here is Katja Weitzenböck and the one thing I immediately think of when seeing her or hearing her name is that she was born in Japan. Her career, however, started with French films in which she played minor parts next to Clavier, Reno and Adjani. Not too shabby. But this is all the positive I can say. Quickly afterwards, she switched to German movies (as you would guess with her name) and dished out one terrible project after the next. I cannot even blame her. I have seen her in quite a few films by now already and there is no range or versatility to her characters, so she is a really limited performer I would say. But she managed a long career in the industry nonetheless despite playing pretty much the same character in every movie. The ones really to blame are those that keep picking her, even for lead roles like with this film here. She may not be as terrible here at times as she is in most other movies, but gently-speaking she still isn't a revelation either. The male lead here, Johannes Herrschmann, is probably not as known as Weitzenböck, but he has enjoyed a long career too and for example also been in the Oscar-nominated Sophie Scholl movie. I think his physicality here helps, but his character and performance are certainly among the more likable aspects from this film. Not that it means a lot because that is mostly because everything else is fairly terrible. And probably my personal background also made it easy to like the character. Heikko Deutschmann, the probably biggest supporting player, is one where I think I remember the name at least, the face not so much, but his turn was also okay, especially given how terrible the script feels at times. Luckily for him, he is not in one of the most cringeworthy scenes. or at least does not play a vital role there. Diana Körner I am surprise to see she was in Barry Lyndon, a film that won many Oscars, back in the day, but this means it is also sad that she is now in stuff like this, Rote Rosen and Rosamunde Pilcher adaptations. Finally, the young actress is Minna Markert. Easy on the eye, but this was her first of only two films with the second being from 2015, so it seems she is leading a life away from the film industry now.
Speaking of plot and story here, you can see from my really low rating (actually the lowest possible for me because I don't give out 1/10) that I thought it was a pretty terrible watch for the most part- The comedy did not work well at all and there were almost no exceptions. The drama aspect was there, but it felt only like playing the second fiddle. Nonetheless, they expect the full range of emotions from the audience near the end when the two main characters are apparently not becoming an item because of their problems and then of course at the very end when they do. This is always the case with Degeto pretty much and each and every single time, it feels extremely fake and unrealistic. I will get into detail about that later on. The premise here is that we have a clockmaker, actually a fella who repairs clocks, and his employee and he lies to his brother for some (nonsense) reason that he is married, so his colleague has to play his spouse when the brother shows up to see what his brother is doing in life. Of course, our protagonist is a dedicated clockmaker and the other fella just focuses on cheap watches from Asia. Could have been enough reason to think the brother is a real antagonist here, especially if we take a look at how touchy he is with his brother (as he assumes) wife. But nope, he turns out to be a nice guy too eventually. Really encourages his brother to go for the girl at the very end in some rather cringeworthy pep talk. That was more due to the writing though again than to the acting. Not even the best actors on the planet could have made this scene/movie work. So this is the general premise bascially.
If we look at the male protagonist's lack of experience with women or people in general, the scene in which he asks the woman to be his wife (for a while) was still mildly funny, but if we also take into accountthe scene before in which he says he wants to ask her something, it was pretty much all on the cringeworthy side. How he says now, later, now, later. Eventually, they start to prepare the little fake performance and there I wondered how dumb they are. Like the daughter of the female protagonist has to tell them everything. The background of their relationship (always cringeworthy when characters respond differently to the same questions), that she must know where to find stuff in their home and it also takes ages until they finally realize they also need rings. Sigh. So poor. But it was also the small moments away from that where the film sucked. Take the phone call which the female protagonist answers with her real name. So expected. Or also take the very first scene of the female protagonist at the store when she is busy with a client and how he hits on her is really unwatchable. A key moment for me in deciding that this is nnot a weak film, but a bad film. ARD Degeto always has their thing with depicting males as highly unlikable and caring only for one thing really. The touchy brother is another great example. Or also how the male protagonist messes up everything because of ridiculous jealousy reasons. The anti-male message may not be as strong in this film as it is in other ARD movies, but it is there nonetheless. Weitzenböck's character is basically flawless with her behavior as it is always the case with female protagonists in these films. There is nothing wrong with the daughter either. On the contrary, the girl's (first) boyfriend is depicted like a man already who also indirectly says he won't be faithful. More misandry. This subplot honestly also was a complete joke and so embarrassing to watch.
The very worst thing about this film, however, is by far the happy closure at the end. When the man decides to go up there to stop the clock, I cringed already. But what follows is even worse. The woman shows up there too of course and they throw deep and meaningful phrases at each other. "The humans' angel is time." by Schiller Or how she won't say no to a man that can stop time. Oh my. Unwatchable really, also with usual bad soundtrack you always find in these films. Besides, the ring moment already implies that marriage may be a thing soon. Not exaggerated at all. Or that she will basically move in with him. Oh yes, some more brainstorming. Showing us what kind of food the fella has in his kitchen was also an anti-male stereotype again, even if the daughter's words took some misandry out of this scene telling us that it is also not all perfect with her mother at home. Then the female protagonist is of course so good that within hours apparently, she has a new job potentially coming up in Hamburg out of nowhere. Anything I really liked about this film? Well, that they kept the drama rather low. For example, in films with kids we almost always get pseudo drama with the small ones running away. Not so here. Luckily. The girl's plot was still bad as I already stated. The dog was pretty cool though, even if it had no impact on the story. And I really wondered with how there were no people around at all and the film had many scenes outside, especially in the second half or also at the end. I don't mean up there where the two have the reunion obviously, but when the male protagonist is with the female protagonist's daughter right before that. Or also at the cemetery. I don't know where all the GEZ money goes, but the one direction where it certainly doesn't go is to turn these films into at least a semi realistic watch. Major thumbs-down for the outcome here. One more example of that is the moment when the female protagonist's mother shows up and the cringe there. How stupid can the brother be to still not see what's going on. To sum it all up, the likable male protagonist alone is by far not enough to watch this film. Absolutely skip and this should really not be on national television anymore after all these years.
