Two newborn babies, a girl and a boy are mixed up in the hospital. A Turkish and a German family experience this only when the Children are 16. Now the children swap families for two weeks to get to know the life of the other. From this plot i have expected nothing and was not disappointed . The film indulges in clichés, such as the non comic, speech impediment of the Turkish family, or the divorced over-cautious mother of the boy. The Turkish daughter is, of course, a Bitch and the German boy a Looser. Later, he is also shown how a real Turk behaves, what he naturally mimics exaggerated. In the end, it gets even to a bit of social criticism, as the German Mother don't recognize the Turkish Mother and believes it would be the cleaning lady. There is of course a happy ending. The boy gained self-confidence and the daughter is no longer a Bitch.
2 Reviews
If this movie was a child, then it would be one only a mother can love
Horst_In_Translation31 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
"Kückückskind" is a German television film from 2014, so this one is already way over five years old and this means that what we have here is not a new or refreshing watch at all, even if it already back then started to cash in on the subject of immigration and colture clash. As unsuccessfully as it gets. This is apparently not an ARD Degeto production and it was on ZDF today, but this does not even mean remotely this is a decent watch. The really unfunny and try-hard play on words for the title makes it very obvious. I am not even gonna try to translate or explain it, but they basically tookm a German word linked to the story and replecase the two u's with ü's to emphasize that half of the key characters are Turkish. The movie runs for slightly under 1.5 hours, just like the cast majority of German small screen releases. The director is Christoph Schnee, nice name with all the snow we have right now, and he is a pretty experienced filmmaker, even if he mostly worked on series. But also back in 2014, he had a pretty big body of work. Interestingly enough, he started for Sat, RTL and Pro7 early in his career and worked on a great deal of comedy projects before he accepted the perhaps inevitable move to those stations that are paid through GEZ money. Sad thing. The writer here is Florian Hanig. Not too much to say about him. This one is a very early career effort from him from the year when he launched his career, so he is relatively young now, still was back then, and there may be some hope that he can improve in the future, even if I must say that, looking at his body of work, the stuff he did after this film until 2021 now does not make me too optimistic. Also some documentary stuff there.
The cast here is basically a mix of German and Turkish actors as I stated early on. There really aren't too many famous ones here, or at least not too many where you would say that you immediately recognize him. Adnan Maral may be one exception. He was alright for the most part or at least did not make the pretty embarrassing material even worse. Had everybody been on his level, then maybe I even would have given the outcome here two stars more, no matter how bad the writing is. And yes, it is really bad. One cast member, however, who makes it very easy for me to not give a higher rating is Natalia Wörner. I still think that she does not have the slightest bit of talent when it comes to acting and it is pretty ridiculous how, now that her significant other is a pretty influential politician here in Germany, she is seen as distinguished. She never showed real range, talent or versatility in any of the many projects she has been a part of. Pretty ridiculous by the way that recently she played an important diplomat in some politics thriller or something. Yeah, we all know where that come from. The "good" news is that no matter how much she will mess up (and she sure does a lot), she will probably never be as incompetent as the guy who#s with her. In real life I mean. Now back to this film. Anybody else for me to mention here? Not really. Maybe Ava Celik, who was maybe the best from the younger cast members. I may be a bit biased here because I think she is a stunner, but even without this bias I would probably not go really hard on her. There's many far more embarrasing performances in here, who are really off the mark. Celik is among the better here, even if that does not mean a lot.
I do think this film started really weak overall, then here and there slightly got better, but interruptions of bad moments happened nonetheless far too often and towards the end, the quality goes a bit down again, even if I don't think it gets as bad as it started anymore. This very much has to do with Wörner, but good news is there are large segments really when she is out of the picture completely. Her frequent inclusion early on may be the key reason for me why I would say the beginning was the worst. Somebody who is just as bad as Wörner is the guy you see on the photo here and the actor's name is Robert Alexander Baer. Man he was unwatchable. Really bad early on again and only minimally improved as the film progresses. An absolutely crucial factor and performance for me here why there is no way I could give this film a higher rating. Only with a different actor for his part, especially because it's really a crucial role at the center of the story. You can also say that it may be true that the script is to blame as well, but his female counterpart (Celik) that I mentioned earlier at least partially manages to show us that not all is lost. Baer does not manage one bit to do so. Unwatchable performance. When he says his lines, it never feels authentic really. Terrible line delivery. Another reason why the beginning is this bad is how they elaborated on the premise, how they showed us through flashbacks the way it happened that the two babies are switched back then. How the doctor has everything on his mind except doing his job properly. And please don#t tell me they can only vaguely determine a baby's gender while it's still iin the mother's womb. The only thing that could have made it even worse would be if they had taken it all back in the end and said that the guy who found out about it made a mistake and actually they were with the right families. Oh and how the male Kückückskind bumps so often into the female Kückückskind is also a great example of utter lack of authenticity and creativity and also that they are in the same class. How are the chances?
Then there are these ideas with which they wanted to create conflict. Gandhi would be ashamed to be in this movie. Add to that the vegetarian aspect (no thank you, we don't want you), the cello parts etc. On the other side, the girl is having the exact opposite of a life, being pretty superficial and mean and not good at school etc. So yeah, this idea of contrast is also something that never worked out. Things to get way more ambarrassing though when the boy tries to find out about his Turkish roots. Asks another male teen (from Turkey) how they act, how they behave, how they talk to women etc. There may be some truth actually to these elaboration, also that they do not say "I love you", but they did not manage to turn these truths into remotely authentic filmmaking and every time they went for comedy (which was very often), it basically all went wrong. They only get half of it right every time, but the pretent as if they get it all right. Take the example with the meaning of the Turkish words. This is okay, also how it escalates because it is an insult. However, when he ends up there in the basketball basket, they once again exaggerate way beyond legitimacy. I know exaggeration can be a way to deliver through comedy, but only if the talent is there. Here it absolutely is not and this is why almost all of it feels fake and cringeworthy. Sometimes less is more and this definitely would have applied to this movie here too. One thing you always get with these films is an escalation towards the end and this would be the party that goes completely wrong and shows us the girl still has a guilty conscience and has her heart at the right place, feels responsibility towards her real parents. But of course, a group of women show up and fix everything, also the clothes, somehow and this is where we are heading towards the expected happy ending that you also always get with these films. The German and Turkish family are getting along well of course and their major struggles are gone.
This is a film that makes almost zero sense with the key idea, but it is also the small moments linked to said idea where it feels really weak. Just take the example of Wörner's character very early on and how she tells the Turks that both kids belong to her basically. Maral's character did a better job there when he expresses happiness for finally having a son. But he also had his bad moments that were written really poorly. One that very much stays in the mind would be the scene when he escalates and screams at the boy you see on the poster here because there is an issue with different cultures and religions. Okay, to sum it all up, I would say that the perhaps very worst moment from the entire film was when we had that concert. I already mentioned how the boy is a cello player and when there was this concert, he apparently focused on his wild Turkish roots and turned it all intoa gigantic mess. Another scene that was supposed to be funny, but this is where it was really more unwatchable than everything else. The parents were outraged. Celik's character and one or two others find it funny, but that's it. I feel bad for everybody in the audience who also thought this was a funny scene. Baer was probably at his very worst there and this mean quite something given he was bad all the time during this film. I don't think there is too much to add. Good news is that they never made a sequel and also that there wasn't a series or so based on this, although most cast members here are probably not exactly in great demand that they could not fit it into their schedule and writer Hanig is also not super prolific. Okay, let's not plant any absurd thought in their minds. There are many other scenes and inclusions here that also sucked, but I shall leave it at that. If you find nonsense like "Türkisch für Anfänger" funny, then you will probably also like this movie. But those with an actually decent taste in films have only one option here: Skip under any circumstance.
The cast here is basically a mix of German and Turkish actors as I stated early on. There really aren't too many famous ones here, or at least not too many where you would say that you immediately recognize him. Adnan Maral may be one exception. He was alright for the most part or at least did not make the pretty embarrassing material even worse. Had everybody been on his level, then maybe I even would have given the outcome here two stars more, no matter how bad the writing is. And yes, it is really bad. One cast member, however, who makes it very easy for me to not give a higher rating is Natalia Wörner. I still think that she does not have the slightest bit of talent when it comes to acting and it is pretty ridiculous how, now that her significant other is a pretty influential politician here in Germany, she is seen as distinguished. She never showed real range, talent or versatility in any of the many projects she has been a part of. Pretty ridiculous by the way that recently she played an important diplomat in some politics thriller or something. Yeah, we all know where that come from. The "good" news is that no matter how much she will mess up (and she sure does a lot), she will probably never be as incompetent as the guy who#s with her. In real life I mean. Now back to this film. Anybody else for me to mention here? Not really. Maybe Ava Celik, who was maybe the best from the younger cast members. I may be a bit biased here because I think she is a stunner, but even without this bias I would probably not go really hard on her. There's many far more embarrasing performances in here, who are really off the mark. Celik is among the better here, even if that does not mean a lot.
I do think this film started really weak overall, then here and there slightly got better, but interruptions of bad moments happened nonetheless far too often and towards the end, the quality goes a bit down again, even if I don't think it gets as bad as it started anymore. This very much has to do with Wörner, but good news is there are large segments really when she is out of the picture completely. Her frequent inclusion early on may be the key reason for me why I would say the beginning was the worst. Somebody who is just as bad as Wörner is the guy you see on the photo here and the actor's name is Robert Alexander Baer. Man he was unwatchable. Really bad early on again and only minimally improved as the film progresses. An absolutely crucial factor and performance for me here why there is no way I could give this film a higher rating. Only with a different actor for his part, especially because it's really a crucial role at the center of the story. You can also say that it may be true that the script is to blame as well, but his female counterpart (Celik) that I mentioned earlier at least partially manages to show us that not all is lost. Baer does not manage one bit to do so. Unwatchable performance. When he says his lines, it never feels authentic really. Terrible line delivery. Another reason why the beginning is this bad is how they elaborated on the premise, how they showed us through flashbacks the way it happened that the two babies are switched back then. How the doctor has everything on his mind except doing his job properly. And please don#t tell me they can only vaguely determine a baby's gender while it's still iin the mother's womb. The only thing that could have made it even worse would be if they had taken it all back in the end and said that the guy who found out about it made a mistake and actually they were with the right families. Oh and how the male Kückückskind bumps so often into the female Kückückskind is also a great example of utter lack of authenticity and creativity and also that they are in the same class. How are the chances?
Then there are these ideas with which they wanted to create conflict. Gandhi would be ashamed to be in this movie. Add to that the vegetarian aspect (no thank you, we don't want you), the cello parts etc. On the other side, the girl is having the exact opposite of a life, being pretty superficial and mean and not good at school etc. So yeah, this idea of contrast is also something that never worked out. Things to get way more ambarrassing though when the boy tries to find out about his Turkish roots. Asks another male teen (from Turkey) how they act, how they behave, how they talk to women etc. There may be some truth actually to these elaboration, also that they do not say "I love you", but they did not manage to turn these truths into remotely authentic filmmaking and every time they went for comedy (which was very often), it basically all went wrong. They only get half of it right every time, but the pretent as if they get it all right. Take the example with the meaning of the Turkish words. This is okay, also how it escalates because it is an insult. However, when he ends up there in the basketball basket, they once again exaggerate way beyond legitimacy. I know exaggeration can be a way to deliver through comedy, but only if the talent is there. Here it absolutely is not and this is why almost all of it feels fake and cringeworthy. Sometimes less is more and this definitely would have applied to this movie here too. One thing you always get with these films is an escalation towards the end and this would be the party that goes completely wrong and shows us the girl still has a guilty conscience and has her heart at the right place, feels responsibility towards her real parents. But of course, a group of women show up and fix everything, also the clothes, somehow and this is where we are heading towards the expected happy ending that you also always get with these films. The German and Turkish family are getting along well of course and their major struggles are gone.
This is a film that makes almost zero sense with the key idea, but it is also the small moments linked to said idea where it feels really weak. Just take the example of Wörner's character very early on and how she tells the Turks that both kids belong to her basically. Maral's character did a better job there when he expresses happiness for finally having a son. But he also had his bad moments that were written really poorly. One that very much stays in the mind would be the scene when he escalates and screams at the boy you see on the poster here because there is an issue with different cultures and religions. Okay, to sum it all up, I would say that the perhaps very worst moment from the entire film was when we had that concert. I already mentioned how the boy is a cello player and when there was this concert, he apparently focused on his wild Turkish roots and turned it all intoa gigantic mess. Another scene that was supposed to be funny, but this is where it was really more unwatchable than everything else. The parents were outraged. Celik's character and one or two others find it funny, but that's it. I feel bad for everybody in the audience who also thought this was a funny scene. Baer was probably at his very worst there and this mean quite something given he was bad all the time during this film. I don't think there is too much to add. Good news is that they never made a sequel and also that there wasn't a series or so based on this, although most cast members here are probably not exactly in great demand that they could not fit it into their schedule and writer Hanig is also not super prolific. Okay, let's not plant any absurd thought in their minds. There are many other scenes and inclusions here that also sucked, but I shall leave it at that. If you find nonsense like "Türkisch für Anfänger" funny, then you will probably also like this movie. But those with an actually decent taste in films have only one option here: Skip under any circumstance.
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