Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This is one of those German films you don't think exist. It's very well cast, starring two of Germany's most prolific stage-actresses, Thalbach and Harfouch and featuring a plot that doesn't appear to go with a nation that produces either cute comedies or brainy message movies, and pretty much nothing in-between. This is, if it can be called a comedy, the dark kind, featuring murder, jail, betrayal and blackmail as some of the more unlikely ingredients. "Gefährliche Freundin" (which translates something like "Dangerous Friend") is a film that changes it's direction, maybe even it's genre, more than once. "Surprising" is probably the most appropriate word. Surprising, unexpected, and very well and subtly acted. Katharina Thalbach is quite a character to begin with, and her sure hand for comedy adds surprising weight to the tragedy of her character's plight.She plays Hanna, a woman in the shadow of her glitzier girlfriend (the one who gets all the guys), played by the extravagant Corinna Harfouch. When a boozed up night out with two truckers ends with one body and one knife to account for, the story's only just beginning.Not your average TV-movie-of-the-week. Highly recommended.