GOODBYE LENIN

UGC FILMS

RELEASED 25 July 2003

This German smash-hit comedy had a massively sucessful run in it’s homeland, having taken more money than Harry Potter. THAT’S impressive. And it is funny, though it’s spoiled by being thirty minutes longer than it needed. Dedicated DDR supporter Christiane goes into a coma just before the Berlin Wall falls, and when she wakes, her health is so fragile that her son Alex decides he must pretend that East & West Germany are still divided to spare his mother a potentially fatal shock. Much of the humour stems from Alex covering up new Capitalist concerns such as Coca-Cola from his mum. Good, but something of a one-note joke.

TWO OUT OF FIVE