User Reviews

"Ein Sommer auf Zypern" or "A Summer in Cyprus" is a German television film from 2017 and I am not sure if you can call these "A Summer in..." films a series as they do not feature the same actors, but they are in a way connected by how bad they almost always are. They take viewers around the globe and this time we end up in the southern regions of Europe with a lot of sun and seaside. Cyprus is the place. Just like the others, this one here runs for slightly under 1.5 hours. The writer is Birgit Maiwald and the director is Jorgo Papavassiliou. If you look at the projects these two have worked on previously, then you cannot really be surprised about the quality here. Or lack thereof. Probably only a fool could even think that Papavassiliou would be able to turn this into a decent film with his own roots being closely connected where the film is set. As for the cast, you will surely recognize some of the actors in here if you are a German film buff. Despite their foreign roots, these people have appeared in many German-language films and series. The most familiar face is of course Adam Bousdoukos who is always easy to identify, not only because of his work with Fatih Akin. It is still a bit sad though to know he played the lead in an Akin movie and now, or actually six years ago even, he had to show up for films like this one here that are not really any better than Regina Ziegler productions. This is one of the more recent "A Summer in..." movies and sadly the series is still existing as of now. And what is even worse is that Germans are literally forced by the state to pay money to ARD and its smaller stations to make films like this one. A truly undemocratic tragedy, but that is another story.

Back to the movie now: There is not too much positive I can say to be honest. One somewhat decent aspect is that the actors are not too bad. Or at least not all of them are bad. They are really held back by the material that forces them to deliver lines that are just woeful. Nonetheless, here and there it also shows that the cast is also not really a revelation. This applies especially to child actor Leon de Greiff, who made the material even worse at times and I have a pretty tough to time to still see him in acting once he is an adult. But then again there are more than a few truly untalented actors making nice bucks in Germany. Schweighöfer is the best example. As for this film here, a major issue were the interactions between the kid and his mother that just felt so awfully written on many occasions that it was impossible to take them seriously. The film is really at its worst when it tried to depict the kid as smart or when the film tried to be funny. These inclusions about sex talk where we are supposed to understand that the boy is not a small child anymore, but understands a lot were impossible to stomach for example. Or take the moment when he asks his mother why the other brother could not be his dad. If there was the slightest bit of doubt still at that point what is going to happen later on (there really wasn't!), then it was gone. Of course, lead actress Blendl's character would get together with Bousdoukos' character. The other man was taken anyway, the boy's father.

These films are primarily directed at women, so it is no surprise that women are also included in a way here in a fashion where the simple-minded identify with them. There is one for everybody. First is the protagonist, a tough single mom who runs a business at the same time and still longs for love. The second is the father's wife who is really not interested in having a child and still a self-confident and determined woman and finally there is the boy's grandmother who covers the older female viewers. It is also telling that the film is occasionally quite anti-male. Of course, it was thrown in that the female protagonist's partner cheated on her and even if he is only mentioned once briefly, we are supposed to see him as a pig who does not deserve this great woman. At the same time, we find out that the female protagonist stopped being in touch with the father of her son, but there the man is really to blame with the marriage proposal and all is good anyway because he quickly found another woman with whom he has been together to this day. There are more really cringeworthy moments. I could not list them all and stay under the character limit of 10,000. But you get the message. One is of course towards the end when everybody is looking at each other and not saying anything when they non-verbally decide that the boy can stay for another three weeks on the island.

If we move a bit away from the story, it also felt really clumsy how the film was trying to get across some information about Cyprus and its historic background. Again, so scripted, but yeah stuff like the boy telling his mother at the very start what she should do with her mobile phone wasn't any better. Also given the beauty of Cyprus, I was amazed how this film was not even a beautiful sight for the eyes really. So they got it all wrong really from any perspective, but this is where I was most disappointed with the director that he could not even get this right. So if you wanna see Cyprus, do not watch this film. Watch a travel documentary or so instead. By the way, the parallels between Cyprus (or its capital) still being stuck between two countries and the (romantic) relationships in this film were also nothing short of embarrassing and honestly Bousdoukos' character's elaboration on what certain music is usually about was not any better. I will still admit that despite some lengths, I considered giving this film a 2/5 and not a 2/10, but with everything that happened in the last third or last quarter of the movie, it is just impossible to say this was a weak film. It was a terrible film. I am not sure what was worse, the pseudo-dramatic conflict about the female protagonist learning why she was their and her anger or the inclusion that the old man had another heart attack and if the latter was not bad enough and for the sake of it already, then they made things even worse by showing us that the old man was perfectly fine and only did it to keep his grandson near him and also teach his infantile sons a lesson. Woeful stuff. Of course, the plot about a controversial business decision between the two brothers that was poor filler material since its first mention gets solved as well towards the end by one just saying simply okay he will give the other the money he needs. And then strangely enough the foreign business partner also shows up out of nowhere on the island in the end and tells the folks that he needs twice the amount of what he ordered, so all is going perfectly well since the woman who does not want a baby is an equal partner. As usual with these films they included too much closure in the end that it did not feel realistic at all anymore.

The one thing that caught my attention at least was how Bousdoukos here once more plays a man interesting in running a restaurant or at least something associated with gastronomy. As he did with Akin. But this is all the positive I can say. The actor's German is also so good that it made no sense he played a native from Southern Europe. I mean maybe if he had grown up bilingually, but the explanation that he studied in Germany was another foolish writing inclusion. Almost a factual error. I really wish I could say something more positive here, but this film is close to being an abomination. Bousdoukos turns 50 this year and I hope he can once again show up in better films than this one here as his career could very well go on for another 25 years or longer. This is not the road he should be going down for another three decades. Reminds me a bit of Rüdiger Vogler. Okay I guess this is all then. I assume the frequent talking about mosques and the totally uncritical elaboration on how Muslims turned a cathedral into a mosque several centuries ago also goes nicely with the political climate in Germany and of course this is a film produced for German television. Nobody in Greece or Cyprus or Turkey will be interested in seeing it. Rightfully so. It definitely is not their loss. It is the loss of those who spend close to 100 minutes sitting through this mess. I give the outcome here a big thumbs-down. Stay far away from this, another failure "A Summer in..." production. This movie is not even a good choice to get you in the right mood before an upcoming travel to Cyprus. Oh and mistaking cypresses for Cypriotes is also not exactly funny. I still have a feeling the writer was proud of this "joke". Pure cringe. As I said, I could mention many examples where the writing with this film was really a travesty. No actors could have turned this into something worth seeing. At least Ariane Krampe film production is luckily not much of a thing anymore apparently.