"Happy Burnout" is a relatively new German movie hat had its theatric release back in spring 2017 and it is a most recent work by director André Erkau and for this one here he reunited woth lead actor Wotan Wilke Möhring as these two have worked together in the past already. The film runs for over 100 minutes, so the running time states here on imdb is not entirely correct. The cast features other actors besides Möhring that German film buffs will probably recognize like Trautmannsdorff, Koschitz, Engelke of course, Ullmann, Krumbiegel, Lohse, Wittenborn etc. All in all, it is a cast that has quite a few names that I like and the only one I am really not a fan of at all is Ullmann I guess. So I thought this film would be better than it actually was. I think given the subject it has a bit of an obligation to deliver and be authentic and convincing in order to give respect to those really suffering from burnout syndrome. But it is mostly the opposite sadly. The way the main character was written and portrayed I don't think they did justice to the syndrome and in the end it is just another weak German mostly comedy movie that has the protagonist change his life for the better, in terms of the little girl, in terms of finding friends, maybe even in terms of finding love, but the focus on burnout is a huge disappointment. It is a slightly better Schweighöfer film you could say. Moment that really were dramatic somewhat like the pen in ear scene felt shocking for the sake of it and there really isn't too much positive I can say here. Wittenborn did an okay job as usual with what he was given and it definitely wasn't all good. Engelke was decent too, but there I may be biased too because I like her. Still there were quite a few scenes that were close to horrible and not many good scenes at all, probably not a single great scene. And even if this film is a comedy, I expect better dramatic material if it is about a subject like this. I preferred Erkau's and Möhring's previous collaboration I think also because for a comedy, this was really not even close to being funny enough to be honest. On the contrary, the ways in which the film tekaes itself seriously without being on a level where it would feel justified are really negative deal breaker material. So all in all, it gets a thumbs-down from me and I don't recommend checking it out, the experience by everybody involved behind and in front of the camera is not showing at all. Watch something else instead.
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