Review of Berlin Syndrome (2017) by Jason G — 13 May 2017

LOOKING FOR MR. GUTBAR - My Review of BERLIN SYNDROME (3 Stars).

I love me a good home invasion thriller, especially when events occur with a slowly creeping insidiousness that gets under your skin. FUNNY GAMES and THE STRANGERS come to mind as prime examples of how a seemingly innocent setup could go so terribly wrong by preying on the victims' penchants for kindness. BERLIN SYNDROME, based on the novel by Melanie Joosten fits within this genre, although it's more of a home entrapment thriller than the opposite. Working off a screenplay by Shaun Grant, director Cate Shortland has a talent for atmosphere that reminded me of Sophia Coppola's drowsy, blissed-out aesthetic. She applies this vision to a terrifying story of an Australian tourist named Clare (Teresa Palmer of LIGHTS OUT) who meets Andi, a sweet Berliner (SENSE 8's Max Riemelt) on the street and has a casual overnight hookup with him. His Eastern bloc apartment is perfect for their loud sex, since it's established slyly that nobody can hear them.

The next day, she awakens to find him off to work as a school teacher and he's, perhaps by accident, locked her into his flat. It seems like an honest mistake until he does it again the next day, and it slowly dawns on Clare that Andi has no intention of ever letting her out. It's a sensational setup, with little clues dropped along the way that Clare was in a boatload of trouble right from the very start.

Filled with a plethora of setups and payoffs, BERLIN SYNDROME mostly works, but at nearly 2 hours, it overstays its welcome by at least 30 minutes. Part of the problem is that this film works visually, and thus, contains a lot of silence. Its measured pace doesn't seem warranted, especially when the third act feels so rushed, leaving too many logical steps unanswered. Also, its structure seems arbitrary at times, wherein any of the plot points could have happened at any time. Still, there's a really good 90 minute movie in here.

Palmer, looking almost exactly like Kristen Stewart here, does a fantastic job as the type of traveler who stays in Youth Hostels and trusts strangers too easily. She's not given much of a backstory, but her expressive eyes and stunning range of reactions, at times silenced, filled with rage, or eerily seductive, sell her Kick Ass Waif character. Riemelt, however, has the opposite challenge. We know a lot about him, his work, and his relationship with his father, but he plays only one note throughout. I respected that he never turns into a bile-spewing super villain, but at this length, it falls a little flat. I admire that the filmmakers don't want to turn this film into something cheap, allowing for ambiguity, but there are way too many blanks to fill in, that it ultimately turns frustrating.

At the Writers Guild screening I attended, there were many walkouts, possibly because of the intensity of the violence, or maybe they just got tired of its pacing. While no means great, I stayed. I love watching smart people trying to get themselves out of impossible situations despite the slicing and dicing.