"Für immer 30", which means "Forever 30", is a German television film from 2011, so this one is almost a decade old now. The working title of this 1.5-hour film was "Trau keinem unter 30", which means "Don't trust anybody under 30", admittedly even worse than the actual title they went with in the end. The director is Andi Niessner and if you take a look at his body of work (especially his many collaborations with the incredibly untalented Jutta Speidel), then you know right away to keep your exepectations as low as it gets. Or lower than pond scum as they say in America and this decsription is also a good fit quality-wise for this movie we have here. Yes it is this bad. However, a director cannot ruin a film on his own. It takes a special writer as well and in this particular case, it is Ilja Haller. I know one should not speak in a mean way about the dead, especially if the death was untimely, but I cannot praise his work here whatsoever. It is just a really really poor screenplay. The photo here on imdb is a bit misleading because the central character from this film is not the woman in the middle, but the man on the left. And right in fact because both characters are played by Felix Eitner. Or can I even say "both characters" because it is really just one character and the one on the left is just a costume worn by the one on the right. So Eitner here has the difficult challenge to display his talent (or lack thereof) as an actor's actor. Well, he is not particularly good, but not among the worst this film has to offer I'd say. The reason why Marie-Lou Sellem looks like the one lead actress in the photo is definitely because these films usually attract (older) female audiences rather than male audiences. Sad, but true. And that is not a sexist statement. Just a fact, so I assume they wanted to trick people into thinking this was more about a female character at the film's core. I mean Sellem sure has a lot of screen time and she is also the character that audiences should find most likable and want to be with, especially with the young lover because they should think they are still very desirable despite their age and can have everybody. Guess what, the women watching this film cannot. At least not those who think it is a good movie and realistic from any perspective. It's a bad joke honestly. I will get to that in a minute. Just a few more words about the supporting players. There are two male actors who are probably more famous than Eitner even and with this I mean Jürgen Tarrach who is always easy to identify and Hanns Zischler. It makes me a bit sad though that these two appear in a garbage film like this. I mean Zischler was in Munich half a decade earlier, worked with Spielberg and in 2011 he appears in movies like "Für immer 30"? Why oh why. And finally, last mention goes to Sidonie von Krosigk. She had a promising start into her acting career as Bibi Blocksberg, but looking at what she appeared in back in 2011 and also now in 2020, there is no hope for her anymore it seems when it comes to creative achievements. In this film here, her role was the protagonist's daughter and a struggling father-child relationship that is magically solved like everything else at the very end, just like Tarrach's character's struggling romantic relationship and of course the romantic relationship between the two main characters as we see them kiss. What a difference two months make.
Okay, now a few words on the lack of realism. It is really entirely messy and I have no clue what the writer as thinking telling us that this is authentic from any perspective. We have a successful businessman, who struggles with his age though and as a consequence also pretty much loses his job. Then he reads that his company wants to employ younger people and he decides to change his appearance in a way that they will not recognize he is not under 30 (as he has to be for the job, now that would get a lot of ageism criticisms nowadays, more than they can make up for with the oh so tolerant lesbian love story). The problem is, however, that he never looks under 30 at all in his poor man's Austin powers outfit. By the way, also the brief scenes and sequences are often utter failure and never as funny as they should like the one with the beauty expert that is over 50 already as we find out. Must be a pro then, huh? Anyway, things get worse. Really nothing makes sense. Even if we say that it is realistic that neither all his former colleagues nor his boss and not even his own daughter recognize him for who he is (which it totally is not), then there are other questions. Doesn't he have to state an adress? If it was the same like his actual, somebody must have gotten skeptical. Does nhe not have to provide an ID card? This film really gets all the basics wrong. But hey, at least it gives us a ridiculous love story, right? These two scenes when the two protagonists have this synergy (the second one with them kissing) are downright cringeworthy and feel so fake and written. I can only feel sorry for people who believe this is real. There are many more nonsense moments. One would be whehn her young (ex-)lover has this breakdown, attacks the protagonist and 2 minutes later, he is all calm again and says he diid not mean it or so. It makes absolutely no sense. All of a sudden, he respects his rival. There was no reason, no explanation why he changes his mind so quickly. Then again, I am not sure why I am still looking for logical aspects in this film. After all, it is a ARD Degeto production, which means indeed the pond scum of German television. Crappy beyond believe. And certainly not the kind that is so bad it is funny. Also, something you see (or hear) often in these films is that they use famous songs frequently. I wonder if they got the permission to do so. I actually hope not, so the artists (or their recording companies) can sue the filmmakers here and prevent this film from ever being shown again. Now that would be great new. But sadly not realistic because they would probably just cut the music. People ho make movies like this have no morals whatsoever. I almost feel bad calling ARD Degeto productions movies because of how bad they are. So yeah, this is pretty much all. You get my point. The core story makes no sense. The sub-plots make no sense either, like how all of a sudden he does not care about the tattoo anymore, let alone about daughter's plans to go to another continent and help environmentalists. Are all the female characters so likable here? It's a joke honestly. Well no, the one antagonist who cries in the phone near the end is not. I guess this is what they consider shades. The cringe. Not sure what the worst aspect is here: the fact that this film was even made and released or the fact that it is still shown almost a decade later. The fewer people see it, the better. This is truly a prime example of a movie you want to skip at any cost. Highly not recommended!
Okay, now a few words on the lack of realism. It is really entirely messy and I have no clue what the writer as thinking telling us that this is authentic from any perspective. We have a successful businessman, who struggles with his age though and as a consequence also pretty much loses his job. Then he reads that his company wants to employ younger people and he decides to change his appearance in a way that they will not recognize he is not under 30 (as he has to be for the job, now that would get a lot of ageism criticisms nowadays, more than they can make up for with the oh so tolerant lesbian love story). The problem is, however, that he never looks under 30 at all in his poor man's Austin powers outfit. By the way, also the brief scenes and sequences are often utter failure and never as funny as they should like the one with the beauty expert that is over 50 already as we find out. Must be a pro then, huh? Anyway, things get worse. Really nothing makes sense. Even if we say that it is realistic that neither all his former colleagues nor his boss and not even his own daughter recognize him for who he is (which it totally is not), then there are other questions. Doesn't he have to state an adress? If it was the same like his actual, somebody must have gotten skeptical. Does nhe not have to provide an ID card? This film really gets all the basics wrong. But hey, at least it gives us a ridiculous love story, right? These two scenes when the two protagonists have this synergy (the second one with them kissing) are downright cringeworthy and feel so fake and written. I can only feel sorry for people who believe this is real. There are many more nonsense moments. One would be whehn her young (ex-)lover has this breakdown, attacks the protagonist and 2 minutes later, he is all calm again and says he diid not mean it or so. It makes absolutely no sense. All of a sudden, he respects his rival. There was no reason, no explanation why he changes his mind so quickly. Then again, I am not sure why I am still looking for logical aspects in this film. After all, it is a ARD Degeto production, which means indeed the pond scum of German television. Crappy beyond believe. And certainly not the kind that is so bad it is funny. Also, something you see (or hear) often in these films is that they use famous songs frequently. I wonder if they got the permission to do so. I actually hope not, so the artists (or their recording companies) can sue the filmmakers here and prevent this film from ever being shown again. Now that would be great new. But sadly not realistic because they would probably just cut the music. People ho make movies like this have no morals whatsoever. I almost feel bad calling ARD Degeto productions movies because of how bad they are. So yeah, this is pretty much all. You get my point. The core story makes no sense. The sub-plots make no sense either, like how all of a sudden he does not care about the tattoo anymore, let alone about daughter's plans to go to another continent and help environmentalists. Are all the female characters so likable here? It's a joke honestly. Well no, the one antagonist who cries in the phone near the end is not. I guess this is what they consider shades. The cringe. Not sure what the worst aspect is here: the fact that this film was even made and released or the fact that it is still shown almost a decade later. The fewer people see it, the better. This is truly a prime example of a movie you want to skip at any cost. Highly not recommended!
