Hanna feels slowed down. She finished her literature degree but has no prospect of a job. The everyday pandemic is annoying, lovesickness too, and then the landlord throws her flat share out of the beautiful old Berlin apartment. Now she is returning to her parents in Bielefeld until something new arises. When she gets pizza in the middle of the move, she meets her school love Franzi. The encounter throws the 25-year-old back in time.
In five episodes, the viewer gets to know a woman from Hanna’s past: From the first great love to the club acquaintance, work affair and obsessive crush on the failed relationship. The sixth and last episode is dedicated to the protagonist herself. The concept and characters are from the Dutch series Anne + modeled on. Loving her is entertaining, which is due to the length of the episodes of around ten minutes and the moody topic. The twenties as a phase of life, the uncertainty and the search for identity have often been seen on television. It is rare that a series tells so easily and emotionally from the perspective of a young lesbian woman.
“I would have loved to have fallen in love,” says Hanna, referring to Franzi. From the off, she reflects on her love life. The comment could have taken up too much space. But author Marlene Melchior and co-author and director Leonie Krippendorff manage to hit the right note. And feel her protagonist in the crucial scenes and not let them speak.
The public broadcasters push queer material into the niche
Leading actress Banafshe Hourmazdi carries the story. Although only short sequences from Hanna’s relationships are shown, the viewer develops a feeling for her loving and impulsive nature and the phases she goes through. The strength of the series lies in its naturalness. Menstruation is discussed in a casual and intimate way. Only in one scene is Hanna asked clichéd whether her friend’s penis isn’t missing during sex. “I have big, small, thin, thick, knobbed, wavy ones,” she says, exposing the narrow-mindedness.
Hanna grows with the relationships she enters into. She has sex, loves, breaks up and gets lost. Through the singer Anouk she has to realize that adoration is not attraction. When Anouk gazes at her soulful acoustic version of Toxic meets Hanna’s, you can see why the student has a hopeless crush. The soundtrack is not only precisely tailored to the mood of the scene here. It starts with the title track in which “They’re so pretty, it hurts. I’m not talking ’bout boys, I’m talking’ bout girls” the queer pop singer Girl in Red can be heard.
“When I fell in love with a girl for the first time as a teenager, I missed series, stories and narratives about queer women and the world they live in,” says Melchior at the start of Loving her. There will be many international series hits in 2021, including queer stories Pose, Euphoria or It’s a sin. In May, the ARD showed All you need for the first time a series with exclusively gay protagonists – in the media library and on ARD One. Now the ZDF follows Loving her, a TV production with lesbian characters – in the media library and on ZDFneo. The substances required by Melchior are available today from the public sector. But still only in the niche.
Loving her, from now on in the ZDF media library and from 3.7. at 9.40 p.m. on ZDFneo