"Herr Lenz reist in den Frühling" is a German television film that premiered in October 2015, so this one is really close to its fifth anniversary now. The title is literally impossible to translate without losing the meaning or the play on words in there. It basically means "Mr. Lenz travels into spring" and "Lenz" is a poetic German word for spring too. Probably not a coincidence, maybe they even named him only that, so they could use the title. The spring reference of course is linked closely to Asia where a large part of the film takes place. But first things first: Like the vast majority of German television films, this one here runs for approximately 1.5 hours. The director is Andreas Kleinert, who has been making films since the late 1980s, so already over 30 years now, over 25 when he made this one, and his body of work is not bad at all. Especially "Wege in die Nacht" is a movie that many more people need to see. So this is not the average garbage small screen production we have here, also because writer Käfer's body of work is also not too bad, even if he is not as good or prolific as the director. The photo here on imdb is pretty misleading. We see actress Steffi Kühnert, who plays the main character's wife, but really this film is never about anybody other than Mr. Lenz, so Tukur should be shown here. That's right, Ulrich Tukur plays the title character and that means something because he is also somebody who you see playing lead characters in theatrical releases, so I would say he is certainly above this movie and they can be pretty happy they got him for sure. Certainly a cast that makes you curious, me especially because I quite like Kühnert as well, even if in this film here she did not do too much for me.
For the smaller parts they mostly cast actors I am not too familiar with. The one exception is Werner Franke. I would not have recognized him and known the name immediately, but he is far from a nobody. Also his supporting performance here as the protagonist's father gave him some awards attention. A bit unjustified though. I mean he wasn't bad or anything, but this film is never anybody else's than Tukur's. Also I felt that his screen time and what there was to his character was not significant enough for a nomination. Oh well, it's alright I suppose. On a completely different note, I wonder why the guy bringing the ashes to the main character was Hispanic if he comes from Asia. That did not make too much sense to me. I eman it is not 100% unrealistic, but I generally thought that they could have used more Asians or used Asians better for this film looking at how their country Thailand is at the center of it all. I mean they are there, but they have like zero impact and when they are not just viewers for once, like the scene with the prostitute, it feels pretty embarrassing honestly. It already starts with the special delivery for Mr. Lenz. I mean that was really absure honestly. And the twist that daddy is in fact alive is really taking things to another level in terls of lack of realism I must say. Hard to appreciate something like this. There are more moments like that, for example how they include Kühnert's character's cheating, of course with a much younger colleague and how the dog finds the shoes and later on Kühnert basically just ends the relationship via webcam apparently. The story with the couple's emo son is not better. Actually, it is worse, maybe the weakest aspect of the entire movie. That was truly cringeworthy I'd say. Overall, it is basically Tukur's decent performance that keeps the film from becoming a complete failure. It is that bad at times in terms of the story and (lack of) attention to detail, but here and there this fairly decent actor manages to shine and elevate the material enough to make it watchable. That's why I am overall going with two stars out of five. By the way, also rarely has a brief dog story been this irrelevant to me, how they depicted that even the dog ignores the main character, so he was really not in a good place in his life at all. Probably if you even consider watching this film, you have a soft spot for Asian-themed films and maybe you have seen Dörrie's taken on the subject already. Some of those I liked quite a bit, others not so much. This film here is somewhere in between probably. Yeah I know it's not by Dörrie, but just to roughly say how good or bad the quality is. My suggestion is nonetheless for you to skip, especially the son's story line (strange body of work from the actor too here on imdb, not sure this is correct) is so low and it is one of the key story lines really, so impossible for me to give this film a thumbs-up, even if admittedly (among other things because they are not going for a completely unauthentic and forced happy ending) it is still better than 90% of other small screen productions from my country. A sad state of affairs indeed. Watch something else instead.
For the smaller parts they mostly cast actors I am not too familiar with. The one exception is Werner Franke. I would not have recognized him and known the name immediately, but he is far from a nobody. Also his supporting performance here as the protagonist's father gave him some awards attention. A bit unjustified though. I mean he wasn't bad or anything, but this film is never anybody else's than Tukur's. Also I felt that his screen time and what there was to his character was not significant enough for a nomination. Oh well, it's alright I suppose. On a completely different note, I wonder why the guy bringing the ashes to the main character was Hispanic if he comes from Asia. That did not make too much sense to me. I eman it is not 100% unrealistic, but I generally thought that they could have used more Asians or used Asians better for this film looking at how their country Thailand is at the center of it all. I mean they are there, but they have like zero impact and when they are not just viewers for once, like the scene with the prostitute, it feels pretty embarrassing honestly. It already starts with the special delivery for Mr. Lenz. I mean that was really absure honestly. And the twist that daddy is in fact alive is really taking things to another level in terls of lack of realism I must say. Hard to appreciate something like this. There are more moments like that, for example how they include Kühnert's character's cheating, of course with a much younger colleague and how the dog finds the shoes and later on Kühnert basically just ends the relationship via webcam apparently. The story with the couple's emo son is not better. Actually, it is worse, maybe the weakest aspect of the entire movie. That was truly cringeworthy I'd say. Overall, it is basically Tukur's decent performance that keeps the film from becoming a complete failure. It is that bad at times in terms of the story and (lack of) attention to detail, but here and there this fairly decent actor manages to shine and elevate the material enough to make it watchable. That's why I am overall going with two stars out of five. By the way, also rarely has a brief dog story been this irrelevant to me, how they depicted that even the dog ignores the main character, so he was really not in a good place in his life at all. Probably if you even consider watching this film, you have a soft spot for Asian-themed films and maybe you have seen Dörrie's taken on the subject already. Some of those I liked quite a bit, others not so much. This film here is somewhere in between probably. Yeah I know it's not by Dörrie, but just to roughly say how good or bad the quality is. My suggestion is nonetheless for you to skip, especially the son's story line (strange body of work from the actor too here on imdb, not sure this is correct) is so low and it is one of the key story lines really, so impossible for me to give this film a thumbs-up, even if admittedly (among other things because they are not going for a completely unauthentic and forced happy ending) it is still better than 90% of other small screen productions from my country. A sad state of affairs indeed. Watch something else instead.
