"Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein" or "The Pursuit of Unhappiness" is a German German-language movie from 2012, which means it has its 5th anniversary this year. The director is Sherry Hormann and she is also the one who wrote the screenplay based on Paul Watzlawick's book. I think I heard that the book got pretty rave reviews, but if it did, then little quality managed the transition from page to screen unfortunately. There are some okay moments and quotes that give a deeper insight into life and love like the question about how one can love / be loved if (s)he does not love him/herself. But there are far from enough memorable aspects here and for the most part it is just another pretty forgettable and clichéd German romance comedy movie. The scene with the women in bikinis at the workplace is just the perfect example how shallow it all is eventually. The parts about serious subjects like death obviously try to set it apart from the mass of Schweighöfer (etc.) films, but it is not really working out at all. I was kinda lucky this is such a short film at only slightly over 80 minutes as eventually nothing stays memorable except the question with whom she will get together eventually and the ending also has that uneasy feeling of being a forced happy ending for the sake of making audiences happy instead of delivering realistic story-telling.
The central character is played by Johanna Wokalek and I believe she is a pretty good actress. Her talent was wasted here for sure and this is especially disappointing as she is far from a prolific actress, so it would definitely be nice to see her in better work if she only appears in new films that rarely and focuses on stage performances instead. Anyway, the cast includes more known names like Berben, Müller, Schubert, Kross, Sadler, Vogler or Gwisdek, but none of them really leaves a lasting impression, especially not Gwisdek who is once again the exact same as in all his performances. Anyway, I may be biased here as I always thought him as overrated. Then again, the other actors I mentioned aren't really any better. As a whole, nothing about this film stands out and I give it a thumbs-down. The title is pretty pseudo-important as well, but eventually as empty and uninteresting as the film itself. Not recommended, even if it is just a weak film, not a disastrous one.
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