Truly Dreadful Film

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Vitus takes a little too long to get to the meat of the story. And then it takes its time letting the story unfold. Aside from the slow pacing, however, it's an interesting story about a child prodigy starring an actual child prodigy.

"Vitus" is a 2006 Swiss film and almost 10 years ago that runs for almost 2 hours and won Best Film at the Swiss Film awards that year. It came pretty close to an Academy Award nomination in the foreign language category. It was Switzerland's submission and made the January shortlist. Basically, it is about a child prodigy, who has a gigantic IOQ, keeps provoking his teachers, is an incredibly talented stock market broker and, most of all, a pianist. This film deals competently with the issues of being just a child who wants a life like all children in the face of his great prospects. The actors were all very solid in here, some even really good, such as Bruno Ganz who you may know from "Downfall". Here he plays a kind grandfather who helps getting his son on the right path when the boy's parents are overwhelmed with their own problems and do not know what to do with their son anymore. The actress who played the mother was okay too. The father was fairly forgettable. But the worst was probably the boy, which is quite a shame as he was the absolute lead character just like the title suggests. Many children's films these days do not require great performances from the younger actors as they are not written in a way where they have to portray great emotion or range. "Vitus" is an exception here. The title character was actually written in a way where only a pretty talented child actor can make it truly work and Teo Gheorgiou was not the right choice. With another, a better casting choice this could have been a truly great piece of filmmaking. Still Fredi M. Murer did a decent job all in all. There are moments when the whole child prodigy plot is way over the top, for example when the boy makes millions within hours or starts running his own company, but if we are not too strict on these, it's a very solid watch in my opinion. Taking everything into account, I recommend "Vitus". Oh and another quick note. There are many Swiss German films out there which are impossible to understand also for German native speakers, because the accent is too thick, but this is not one of them. If you speak German, you will understand everything.

Set in Switzerland, Vitus is a young boy who shows very early musical promise at the piano. His father is an inventor of a new line of hearing aids, and he hopes to one day become the CEO of his company. Both his father and his mother expect him to become a great pianist, and they frown upon his doing such things as carpentry with grandpa because he might hurt his hands.He also is very bright, with an IQ almost too high to measure. School bores him, but as he gets put into higher grades with older students, they make fun of him. 'Vitus' becomes 'Shitus.' Vitus and grandpa loved planes and flying. They even made a contraption that Vitus wore around his waist, looking like wings. One evening, when it was raining, Vitus went out his second floor balcony and ended up in a crumpled heap on the ground. He seemed OK afterwards, but tests showed his IQ to be closer to normal at 120, and his piano playing became very rudimentary.In most of the movie Teo Gheorghiu, who actually is a young, award-winning pianist, played Vitus von Holzen at age 12. His acting is very effective. Overall a fine and charming movie.SPOILERS. Vitus did not actually fall that night, and he was not actually injured, but he had to pretend to become 'normal' so that he could get everyone off his back. His father was mistreated at work by the son of the CEO who had died, and dad was actually fired. But the genius that Vitas was, he took grandfather's savings and with permission created a company 'Mr Wolf Holdings' and playing the expected market swings make millions for gramps, who bought a flight simulator and a plane. Vitus even arranged to have dad's old company purchased when stock went down, and his dad became the CEO.

This is a thoroughly and completely delicious film! I really cannot think of anything else to say about it, but the rules require ten lines of text. One could speak about the flawless decor, the perfection of the costuming, the grace of the cinematography, the charm of the screenplay, the specificity and finesse of the acting, or the flawless interplay of the musical score with the visual elements.This last comment brings to mind two boys on bicycles -- see the film and you'll understand.One gets the sense that everyone involved with the creation of this film must have had an extraordinarily fine time working on it -- it's a work of art that's so overfilled with joy that it splashes off the screen! Although I am personally acquainted with no one involved in the making of this film, I am very, very proud of each and every one of them and would like to thank them for making my life better - if only for a few, brief moments!