"Kein Herz für Inder" is a German television film from 2017. The title is a bit difficult to explain to foreigners. It means "No heart for Indians" (the people from India), but actually, it is also a play on words linked to "Ein Herz für Kinder" (A heart for children). That's the best explanation I can come up with here. The running time is also stated here on imdb and this one runs for under 1.5 hours, minimally under, just like the vast majority of German television films, especially if they were ordered by ARD (Degeto). This one here was and the inclusion of Degeto as well as Theaterkunst GmbH (or Theater"kunst" GmbH as I keep calling them) is never a good sign because these companies have been behind hundreds of weak movies. And "weak" is still a very nice way to put it. As you can see from my rating, I think this one here fits in nicely with the others. Or not so nicely for the people who have to watch it. The director is Viviane Andereggen and I cannot really say too much about her body of work. Some stuff seems alright, other stuff not so much. Looks like, most recently, she also worked on some Swiss Tatort episodes, which is never a good sign from a creativity perspective. According to imdb, she has never written one of her films, so no surprise they got somebody else here to come up with the screenplay. This would be Sathyan Ramesh and the name fits nicely of course given the subject, even if he was born in Berlin and is also fairly experienced already as he started working in the first years of the new millennium and is over 50 now. He was minimally under when he worked on this one.
As for the cast list, German film buffs will definitely find a few familiar faces in here. First credits goes to Aglaia Szyszkowitz with her complicated name and that seems accurate given the screen time, even if they also could have gone for Lena Urzendowsky, but it is okay. The latter was more at the center of the movie early on, but her screen time declined the longer the film went. As for Szyszkowitz, I don't see a particularly talented actress there and again this is a really gentle way to put things. She has been in some abysmal movies and the better outcomes do not really make up for that. Her film husband here is played by Martin Brambach. He is an actor I really like. Nice charisma, excellent recognition value and a decent amount of range I would say. This is why it makes me (more than) a bit sad to see him in films like this. Urzendowsky I mentioned already, her brother is of course Sebastian Urzendowsky, but she may be on a solid trail to become more famous than he did so far. She did not win me over really either this time though, but that had also a lot to do with the writing. Other than the potential loneliness, there was nothing really to her character. Very shallow elaboration. The latter's older sister (as we were just talking about sisters) is played by Mercedes Müller. Not too much to say about her either because of the way she was written. Pretty stunning actress though. The Indian boy is played by Zayn Baig. He was actually a key reason why I did not like this film, even if I am not sure he is the one to blame. But I must say I did not find the character likable at all (as they wanted the audience to) and also I really struggled to understand what he was saying most of the time. So the bully was right with what he said. Said bully is played by Tristan Göbel and this was also disappointing because come on from being the lead in Fatih Akin's Tschick to being what he was in here, it is a gigantic step down on the quality scale. Anna Stieblich plays a smaller part here. She wasn't as poor as on other occasions, but yeah she also had nothing to really work with.
Now let me talk a bit about specific scenes and inclusions here that made it very easy for me to dislike this movie. First of all, the Beatles references felt pretty shallow, even if I came across one good song from the band this way that I have not listened to in a long time. Nonetheless, I would have wished for some record company to sue here and make sure that the copyright content must be removed here, if the result had been that the film is not shown anymore. But truth is, it will still be on national television for a decade or so. Sad truth. The talk about how the husband seduced the wife to Beatles music for the first time was still tolerable, but when the exchange student is called McCartney, they were really taking things too far. Besides, kinda challenging to accept that they really pulled through with stating a wrong gender only to get the kid to some family. Besides, do you not see a picture at least or read about some of the basics? Then the Indian long name would have become obvious for sure. Anyway, even if we accept all this as fact, then there is still a lot of other stuff wrong with this movie, in terms of both small moments and key plot elaborations. As for the small moments, you can for example state the racist neighbor's brief rant on Islam. I don't even want to go into detail about that any further. It was cringeworthy and an utterly inspired moment to please the mainstream there. She is dumb, she is racist, she knows nothing. The recurring face expressions from the protagonists, when they look at the little boy in awe, only work for so long.
But maybe the biggest problem here about this movie is once again the anti-male component. Despicable misandry. The idea of the husband's financial struggles at work was already poor and uncreative enough, but what was even way worse was the idea of the female protagonist cheating on her husband. Not that she did it, but how it is treated as if it was nothing really. How the kids basically catch her in the act at work is a complete joke and the (younger) daughter finds it more funny and awkward than sad although she is definitely at an age where she would understand the consequences. So, what happens next? The mother blames the husband for being too silent and not outspoken as if he is the one at fault for her cheating. And he kinda accepts this approach even. I have no words for that. Men are the epitome of despicable in Degeto films if they only look at another woman, but women can get away with it all the time because either their new men are true love or their husbands neglected them and the latter is the case here. But the woman is never at fault. What was taking things to the next level here is also how she got treated. Like she is the boss. She gets to decide which man to choose and when she does and ends it with her lover via the phone (charming! and the "with your husband?" moment was utterly cringe) after meeting the Indian boy's parents and learning from them, it was honestly the biggest nonsense ever. So yeah, this story alone was reason enough to really give the film here the lowest rating possible. One of several reason. As for the misandry, there are other smaller examples too, like when the woman is capable of something technical on one brief occasion and the man wasn't before and is grumpy as a consequence. And of course, how the man is just grateful in the car near the end and he lovingly touches her face as if nothing happened.
The idea how they all end up in England all of a sudden is also ridiculous, even if Mala Ghedia is stunning. Like that came so out of nowhere and felt very much for the sake of the story than for anything else. realism and authenticity are missing completely in this film, also how they kept elaborating on the story I mentioned earlier with the father's financial issues. But the kids stories are not any better. This refers mostly to Göbel. Just take how he is treated by the teacher in the classroom and how he always acts super cool and then how the Indian boy in this scene is a know-it-all. I mean it does fit with the origin, the glasses etc. but was still so stereotypical and uninspired that it was difficult to watch. And listen to because as almost always the boy was almost impossible to understand. Good news is his dialoges are considerably reduced in the second 45 minutes. Bad news is that where the action moves instead was not any better at all. Oh and I also must mention the scene at the supermarket or where it was when Göbel's character confesses his love to Urzendowsky's. Man that was unwatchable. Not only what he did, but also how he said it with the "better than" parallel. So bad honestly. Written and acted. And please don't tell me that was cute with how flawed it was or anything. The opposite was the case. Okay, that is pretty much it then. I could list at least half a dozen other inclusions and references that went all kinds of wrong, but you get the message. I know there was another Beatled-themed movie starring an (older) Indian character and that one is far more known. Haven't seen it, but I hope it does not really give a bad name to the famous band just like this one here. And I am not even a Beatles fan or anything. But it was disgraceful. Unacceptable for sure that Degeto will probably torture viewers with this mess for at least another decade. Highly not recommended.
As for the cast list, German film buffs will definitely find a few familiar faces in here. First credits goes to Aglaia Szyszkowitz with her complicated name and that seems accurate given the screen time, even if they also could have gone for Lena Urzendowsky, but it is okay. The latter was more at the center of the movie early on, but her screen time declined the longer the film went. As for Szyszkowitz, I don't see a particularly talented actress there and again this is a really gentle way to put things. She has been in some abysmal movies and the better outcomes do not really make up for that. Her film husband here is played by Martin Brambach. He is an actor I really like. Nice charisma, excellent recognition value and a decent amount of range I would say. This is why it makes me (more than) a bit sad to see him in films like this. Urzendowsky I mentioned already, her brother is of course Sebastian Urzendowsky, but she may be on a solid trail to become more famous than he did so far. She did not win me over really either this time though, but that had also a lot to do with the writing. Other than the potential loneliness, there was nothing really to her character. Very shallow elaboration. The latter's older sister (as we were just talking about sisters) is played by Mercedes Müller. Not too much to say about her either because of the way she was written. Pretty stunning actress though. The Indian boy is played by Zayn Baig. He was actually a key reason why I did not like this film, even if I am not sure he is the one to blame. But I must say I did not find the character likable at all (as they wanted the audience to) and also I really struggled to understand what he was saying most of the time. So the bully was right with what he said. Said bully is played by Tristan Göbel and this was also disappointing because come on from being the lead in Fatih Akin's Tschick to being what he was in here, it is a gigantic step down on the quality scale. Anna Stieblich plays a smaller part here. She wasn't as poor as on other occasions, but yeah she also had nothing to really work with.
Now let me talk a bit about specific scenes and inclusions here that made it very easy for me to dislike this movie. First of all, the Beatles references felt pretty shallow, even if I came across one good song from the band this way that I have not listened to in a long time. Nonetheless, I would have wished for some record company to sue here and make sure that the copyright content must be removed here, if the result had been that the film is not shown anymore. But truth is, it will still be on national television for a decade or so. Sad truth. The talk about how the husband seduced the wife to Beatles music for the first time was still tolerable, but when the exchange student is called McCartney, they were really taking things too far. Besides, kinda challenging to accept that they really pulled through with stating a wrong gender only to get the kid to some family. Besides, do you not see a picture at least or read about some of the basics? Then the Indian long name would have become obvious for sure. Anyway, even if we accept all this as fact, then there is still a lot of other stuff wrong with this movie, in terms of both small moments and key plot elaborations. As for the small moments, you can for example state the racist neighbor's brief rant on Islam. I don't even want to go into detail about that any further. It was cringeworthy and an utterly inspired moment to please the mainstream there. She is dumb, she is racist, she knows nothing. The recurring face expressions from the protagonists, when they look at the little boy in awe, only work for so long.
But maybe the biggest problem here about this movie is once again the anti-male component. Despicable misandry. The idea of the husband's financial struggles at work was already poor and uncreative enough, but what was even way worse was the idea of the female protagonist cheating on her husband. Not that she did it, but how it is treated as if it was nothing really. How the kids basically catch her in the act at work is a complete joke and the (younger) daughter finds it more funny and awkward than sad although she is definitely at an age where she would understand the consequences. So, what happens next? The mother blames the husband for being too silent and not outspoken as if he is the one at fault for her cheating. And he kinda accepts this approach even. I have no words for that. Men are the epitome of despicable in Degeto films if they only look at another woman, but women can get away with it all the time because either their new men are true love or their husbands neglected them and the latter is the case here. But the woman is never at fault. What was taking things to the next level here is also how she got treated. Like she is the boss. She gets to decide which man to choose and when she does and ends it with her lover via the phone (charming! and the "with your husband?" moment was utterly cringe) after meeting the Indian boy's parents and learning from them, it was honestly the biggest nonsense ever. So yeah, this story alone was reason enough to really give the film here the lowest rating possible. One of several reason. As for the misandry, there are other smaller examples too, like when the woman is capable of something technical on one brief occasion and the man wasn't before and is grumpy as a consequence. And of course, how the man is just grateful in the car near the end and he lovingly touches her face as if nothing happened.
The idea how they all end up in England all of a sudden is also ridiculous, even if Mala Ghedia is stunning. Like that came so out of nowhere and felt very much for the sake of the story than for anything else. realism and authenticity are missing completely in this film, also how they kept elaborating on the story I mentioned earlier with the father's financial issues. But the kids stories are not any better. This refers mostly to Göbel. Just take how he is treated by the teacher in the classroom and how he always acts super cool and then how the Indian boy in this scene is a know-it-all. I mean it does fit with the origin, the glasses etc. but was still so stereotypical and uninspired that it was difficult to watch. And listen to because as almost always the boy was almost impossible to understand. Good news is his dialoges are considerably reduced in the second 45 minutes. Bad news is that where the action moves instead was not any better at all. Oh and I also must mention the scene at the supermarket or where it was when Göbel's character confesses his love to Urzendowsky's. Man that was unwatchable. Not only what he did, but also how he said it with the "better than" parallel. So bad honestly. Written and acted. And please don't tell me that was cute with how flawed it was or anything. The opposite was the case. Okay, that is pretty much it then. I could list at least half a dozen other inclusions and references that went all kinds of wrong, but you get the message. I know there was another Beatled-themed movie starring an (older) Indian character and that one is far more known. Haven't seen it, but I hope it does not really give a bad name to the famous band just like this one here. And I am not even a Beatles fan or anything. But it was disgraceful. Unacceptable for sure that Degeto will probably torture viewers with this mess for at least another decade. Highly not recommended.
