"Und dennoch lieben wir", which means literally translated "And nonetheless do we love", is a German television movie from 2011, so these allmost 90 minutes here will soon have their 10th anniversary. Director Tiefenbacher was already really prolific back then in terms of small screen releases here in Germany, while the duo of writers (Herzfeld and Kluger) have worked on several other occasions as a team and their bodies of work has some good, some not so good. This film probably is part of the latter, even if it is most likely not their worst career effort. Don't worry if you have never heard any of the names from this trio. But if you are at least a little bit into German films, then you should have come across some of the actors. Claudia Michelsen, who plays the one in the center of the story, is pretty well-known here and Waschke is also one that German film buffs will immediately recognize, even if perhaps they don't remember the name. Foroutan is not too famous, but also not entirely unknown. And usually these films have child actors that are not well-known at all. This one here is different. The two who played the boys have also acted next to each other in the "Fünf Freunde" children's book adaptations that started just one year after this film we have here. It's still not really clear if they will pursue a career in acting as grown-ups. One who most likely will though is Lisa Vicari. Her career looks really promising right now, even if in this film here she has almost no material to work with, let alone shine. She is just there, but this is because of how her character was written, not because of the performance.
So much for the cast. With the story I am genuinely struggling here I must say. On many occasions. I already mentioned the key problem for me in the title. I mean how tiny is the coincidence that these two women not only run into each other, but actually become friends. It would have been bigger if it had all been intentionally initiated by Foroutan's character (that's also what the man suggests), but it wasn't. It was 100% coincidence. And as if that isn't enough already, her son is also the son of the male protagonist here. And if that wasn't enough either, all of a sudden one character suffers from a terminal disease out of nowhere. By the way, I don't want to say too much about the female protagonist's struggles early on that we find out during the phone conversation. This was not particularly well written and Michelsen also did not do a good job there with her presentation, especially that cringeworthy comparison what she feels like. Needless to say that, at the other end of the line, the words from the male protagonist are just as poorly written. Maybe the filmmakers here realized that themselves and just forgot about this story. And shoved one drama after the next into our faces, sadly never convincing. Attention to detail is also lacking for the most part. It was especially the dialogue writing that had a pretty negative impact here. The best example is when the biggest supporting character says at the end where she wants to be buried and then Michelsen's character disagrees and the sick woman agrees with her. I am not sure if it was bad acting or bad writing there, but honestly this moment and scene could have been so much more. One moment that was genuinely bad acting was Quirin Oettl's line delivery of the question if his mother is going to die. Oh yeah and don't get me started on the Kuddelmuddel references. The person who invented this word definitely does not deserve it that his creation is treated the way it is in here. I don't know what they were thinking there, lend some lightness to actually really serious moments? It went all kinds of wrong for sure. So did the film as a whole. The struggles I am mentioning are just examples and there are many other sequences, scenes and conversations during which it becomes obvious that this is it a good film at all. Here and there I was thinking about giving it just one star out of five and it is definitely way closer to that than to 3 out of 5 (and a positive recommendation). The good thing is there are no schmaltzy romance kitsch story lines the way you find them in many other German television films that are shown in the afternoon. But other movies being even worse does not mean this is a good watch. It is not and it is especially disappointing that two writers worked on the script here. They should have seen each other's mistakes, but instead they just combined their mistakes it seems. By the way, one of the writers was born in Uruguay. Maybe that is the reason with the sick women coming from Chile? Not important anyway. Skip this one here. It's not worth seeing with how much they went over the top with all the drama and tragedy and it just doesn't feel realistic or authentic. For the easily entertained, who blindly believe everything you serve them. Sadly, there are enough here in Germany, which is why this film even received aards recognition, which is really inexplicable.
So much for the cast. With the story I am genuinely struggling here I must say. On many occasions. I already mentioned the key problem for me in the title. I mean how tiny is the coincidence that these two women not only run into each other, but actually become friends. It would have been bigger if it had all been intentionally initiated by Foroutan's character (that's also what the man suggests), but it wasn't. It was 100% coincidence. And as if that isn't enough already, her son is also the son of the male protagonist here. And if that wasn't enough either, all of a sudden one character suffers from a terminal disease out of nowhere. By the way, I don't want to say too much about the female protagonist's struggles early on that we find out during the phone conversation. This was not particularly well written and Michelsen also did not do a good job there with her presentation, especially that cringeworthy comparison what she feels like. Needless to say that, at the other end of the line, the words from the male protagonist are just as poorly written. Maybe the filmmakers here realized that themselves and just forgot about this story. And shoved one drama after the next into our faces, sadly never convincing. Attention to detail is also lacking for the most part. It was especially the dialogue writing that had a pretty negative impact here. The best example is when the biggest supporting character says at the end where she wants to be buried and then Michelsen's character disagrees and the sick woman agrees with her. I am not sure if it was bad acting or bad writing there, but honestly this moment and scene could have been so much more. One moment that was genuinely bad acting was Quirin Oettl's line delivery of the question if his mother is going to die. Oh yeah and don't get me started on the Kuddelmuddel references. The person who invented this word definitely does not deserve it that his creation is treated the way it is in here. I don't know what they were thinking there, lend some lightness to actually really serious moments? It went all kinds of wrong for sure. So did the film as a whole. The struggles I am mentioning are just examples and there are many other sequences, scenes and conversations during which it becomes obvious that this is it a good film at all. Here and there I was thinking about giving it just one star out of five and it is definitely way closer to that than to 3 out of 5 (and a positive recommendation). The good thing is there are no schmaltzy romance kitsch story lines the way you find them in many other German television films that are shown in the afternoon. But other movies being even worse does not mean this is a good watch. It is not and it is especially disappointing that two writers worked on the script here. They should have seen each other's mistakes, but instead they just combined their mistakes it seems. By the way, one of the writers was born in Uruguay. Maybe that is the reason with the sick women coming from Chile? Not important anyway. Skip this one here. It's not worth seeing with how much they went over the top with all the drama and tragedy and it just doesn't feel realistic or authentic. For the easily entertained, who blindly believe everything you serve them. Sadly, there are enough here in Germany, which is why this film even received aards recognition, which is really inexplicable.
