Pretty Good

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Clare is an Australian tourist just arriving in Berlin. She's quiet, passive, dull, but smiles a lot. Her first night she drinks on the roof top of her hostel with some people. She's mainly there to take photographs of DDR architecture/life. Next day she meets a guy and they get along well. He shows her around seems to be attracted to her but is reluctant to take things further. On the second day they meet he's not reluctant anymore. He takes her to his place. Next day she wakes up to discover she can't get out. The guy returns and claims to have left the key somewhere. Next day same thing. She's looked up again. She tries to make a call but her SIM card is missing from her phone. He doesn't have much to say to his captive rather pretends she's his girlfriend and this is business as usual.Clare in her passivity doesn't really make any serious attempts at escape or attack. The apartment they're in is in some empty complex. The window are reinforced so she can't do much but break the first glass layer. Even though the apartment is fully furnished there isn't much she can use in terms of tools or weapons. Days and days go by. He's a gym teacher at a school, one student gets interested in him and visits the place, but even then Clare obediently stays quiet and put. His dad is a professor and dies at some point. We don't even know how much time goes by in the movie. Clare goes between weirdly adapting to her captive girlfriend status to occasionally going on the offensive. He brings her the dad's dog and after she gets attached to it he gets rid of it. He takes her out in the Winter but again she only makes a half-baked attempt at getting out of this situation. After nears two hours of this we learn whether Clare can escape or not.Berlin Syndrome is one slow, boring, uninteresting, long, and pointless movie. As is standard of Hollywood movies and "artsy" movies as well these days, little is said. And of course, as little happens, all you're left to do is watch this thing unfold in slow-motion. That this movie is based on a book doesn't make it any better. Thy try to make something about books and art. But it doesn't amount to much. We learn little about this guy, other than he can't stand his mother, so maybe something went on there. The lovely Teresa Palmer for some reason is made to look much less lovely without eyebrows. So there's not even much to see in that regard, although there is a bit of nudity which earns this movie 2 stars. Otherwise there nothing to see here. Had they trimmed this to 1 hour and 20 minutes, made Teresa to look good, added some more characters, they could have had a decent mediocre movie.

I just told you what this movie was to save anyone else watching this the time. By the movies description you might expect to see a suspense,thriller or even horror movie. Berlin Syndrome is none of those. I assure you the only person being tortured in this film is the viewer. The movie goes along at a snails pace and the constant slow motion scenes with the violin music doesn't help. It just reminds me that I should of picked something better to watch. The redeeming part of the movie is Theresa Palmer. The bad part of the movie are the annoying decisions her character makes. I won't say much since I want to keep this review spoiler free but the movie just doesn't do enough of anything.Theresa Palmer's role is to play the dumbest woman in the world who for some reason cannot figure out how to escape an apartment or fend off her kidnapper when she pretty much is left at home alone days on end with nothing to do but think about escaping. I think any woman would of thrown a hot pot of boiling water on the kidnapper and made a run for it or maybe just hit him over the head with something heavy. There's scenes in the movie when you think that will happen because it should happen but it doesn't. This is a movie where you watch a character make dumb decision after dumb decision and all you can say to yourself is WHY!?!. The Berlin Syndrome part or whatever she becomes dependent on her kidnapper if it's not obvious by the title and description but why is the question. He doesn't torture her enough to make her fear him and be compliant and he doesn't talk enough to brain wash her. The plot just seems to move along with little actually driving it. He's interested in her I guess because she corrects his bad English? and she's interested in him because??? He's a foreign man and she's in a foreign land looking for an exciting experience? I guess it's possible the way it went down in the movie she trusted him before knowing him but everything after that makes no sense. I won't even address the ending where another character decides to do everything but what a normal person would in that situation just for the sake of the dramatic plot.I guess I should just leave it at that. If you're into slow love stories like the kind on Lifetime where the guy turns out to be a psycho or something than this is EXACTLY like those just with a bigger budget. If you were a poor sap expecting to watch an exciting movie that's maybe well I dunno interesting this certainly is not that movie.

It's a good thriller. Starts really slow, and in the first 20 minutes, gets lost in useless scenes - which is why I brought a 6/10. But once we're past those sluggish minutes, things get a little too real. And this, I think, comes from the direction: everything is lead to be very ordinary. A regular girl, a regular girl, a regular building, a regular life. Everything is normal here - except it isn't. That's every abusive story we've ever heard of; it''s all very ordinary until one day the police discovers you've been raping your daughter in the basement for almost 20 years, and how terrifying things can get, because implausible details (like the SIM card) are awfully common in relationships like these. This movie goes to great lengths to show how scary that is, in subtle ways. Goes full fledged horror when you realise that the good person you see beating and raping a woman is teaching kids - girls, no less - and demeaning them, making them a little more susceptible to people like him. Kudos to Cate Shortland for having this insight, of showing how close we can get to an abuser; they're not deranged people, estranged from society. They walk among us. They have access to our children. They can talk their way out of almost everything. And we need to pay attention to the signs. Also, to the entire team of photography here, for capturing this notion and being able to depict it in great detail. We're drawn into this world. Some of us may even identify elements of our daily life in it - and the dread it entrails, when you realise you have a chair, a box, a lock, a coat, or anything like any of the characters... When you remember the time backpacking somewhere, the days you spent with a stranger... This movie is able to make this story real, and close. The notion that it could happen to you never leaves, and this is why it's such an unnerving movie. It's also an educational movie. Everyone has this big dramatic image of the abuser assaulting with kicks and punches, screaming at the top of his lungs. Max Riemelt is pristine at his performance, demonstrating perfectly that this is merely a stereotype; that doesn't always happen. He plays a very menacing abuser, without raising his voice at all. We see the wounds he inflicts, and we cannot believe he is the one doing all that - and even with a monster so well portrayed, he still manages to make us feel sorry for him in certain events. And there's Theresa Palmer, whose character makes that reality even more raw. The way she reacts, the words she says... Nothing feels fake, falling from pages of a script. It feels real. It feels like we could say those words, and fall under that trap. It's a remarkable movie, and it's worth at least one screening. It has some flaws, but it's worth the while.

Yes shes in a difficult situation but shes not locked in the dungeon. She has the full apartment to herself to find a way to knock out her perpetrator but only tries one attempt. She succumbs to him as a prisoner, everyone would consider it rape. If that's the case the anger should muster enough energy to take him out. The one attempt is pathetic, one minor strike which leaves him completely mobile, why not hit the leg. She doesn't even lock the door behind her to give her more time. She thinks asking a little girl, when hes close, for help makes more sense. As a lesson, its similar to a CA movie about girls meeting guys online without telling anyone. Well when she goes to his apt, she doesn't notify her mom with her good phone either where she will be. Girls/Young woman might not have the foresight to be safe when they might be in love. This might be the lesson. The ending does not redeem this movie at all.