Arrogant bankers
Ensemble film “The Peacock”: It’s never vain
Andreas (Tom Schilling): “Level only looks like arrogance from below.” photo
© Frank Dicks/Tobis Film/dpa
Somewhere between fairy tales and Agatha Christie is “The Peacock”, a whimsical, over-the-top poultry thriller about a bunch of arrogant bankers. The cast is top notch.
How many reading and show pieces revolve around the question: who did it, who murdered him? That’s the core of the story here, too, except that it’s a poor little peacock who dies. There is also a group of human peacocks, i.e. investment bankers who can hardly walk with arrogance and vanity.
They are supposed to find each other at the team-building meeting in the Scottish highlands. Instead, it’s always about your own sinecure and getting ahead in the company. Tom Schilling is in “The Peacock” as well as David Kross. Lavinia Wilson shines as team leader, Jürgen Vogel shows up with an amazing hairdo, Annette Frier cooks for the rather unsympathetic bunch.
Film adaptation of a bestseller
Director Lutz Heineking Jr. has chosen Isabel Bogdan’s bestseller novel of the same name for his cinema debut. The result is a colourful, over-the-top experimental arrangement in which elements from fairy tales, comedy and also crime thrillers are juggled in a partly cheerful, partly quite thought-provoking way.
As soon as the team builders have left the bus, they stare sullenly at their dead mobile phones; instead of enjoying the imposing panorama surrounding the picturesque mansion of Lord Hamish and Lady Fiona McIntosh (Philip Jackson and Victoria Carling). It doesn’t start well and doesn’t continue well either. All the sometimes unbearable business phrases (“It would be nice if…”, “So that we all sing from the same hymn book”), with which the group leader tries to find some common spirit, are of no use.
When a goose is lost in addition to the peacock, the mood at the manor threatens to change forever, despite all the handsomeness and all the team-building measures (construction of a hut in the forest!).
In its stronger moments, “The Peacock” is a little reminiscent of one of the best German films of the last twenty years: “Time of the Cannibals” (2014), Berlinale contribution with Devid Striesow and Katharina Schüttler. At that time it was management consultants who were allowed to cavort in a chamber play-like setting; Even then, anyone who wanted to could recognize criticism of capitalism – or just be happy about the many very funny moments. The “peacock” gives us such in homeopathic doses.
What’s the matter?
But the successful moments stick; for example when Schilling struts through the picture like a peacock: “Level only looks like arrogance from below”. But as a viewer you lose the thread more and more, wondering what it’s actually about.
But maybe you shouldn’t worry too much about the bizarre-strange story. Even Tom Schilling, co-lead actor, is quoted in the film’s press release as saying: “I think I didn’t check a lot of things in the story”.
So lean back and enjoy: For example, the famous scene in which Schilling’s slightly agitated figure at the piano performs the Gianna Nannini classic “Bello e impossibile” in the most horrifyingly beautiful way. And the other scenes in which the participating German actors like David Kross show what they’re made of.
Above all, worth seeing: Jürgen Vogel, finally cast against the grain (lovable chav) again. Who is sporting a head of hair here that the 54-year-old would no longer have believed capable of.
The Peacock, Germany/Belgium 2023, 106 min., FSK from 12, by Lutz Heineking Jr., with Tom Schilling, Lavinia Wilson, David Kross, Jürgen Vogel