It was supposed to be a dream wedding, with a carriage, chamber orchestra and in a fairytale castle. But then a crazy storm comes up and everything flies around the wedding couple’s ears. Bride and bride can just barely meet – you read that right! – kiss after saying yes, then it’s the end of the world, the wedding cake flies in the direction of a window pane and lands there as a big gossip.
Nothing is really simple in “Einfach mal was Schönes”, not even the relationships that Karoline Herfurth talks about. The director has just demonstrated her talent for hair-raising comedy and rough body slapstick with “Wonderful” (2021), it was about the crazy contortions that women make to meet the contradictory demands on them. Unforgettable is the scene in “Wonderful”, in which a breastfeeding mother – played by Herfurth herself – handles a breast pump on both breasts in the company toilet before a job interview. An apt commentary on the double and triple burden of young mothers.
“Beautiful” was a surprise hit with more than one and a half million viewers in the cinema, “Simply something beautiful” is not only related to the title. Again, it’s about female life plans that often seem just grotesque from a feminist perspective. Radio presenter Karla, a woman in her late thirties (Karoline Herfurth), is so keen on finding her Mr. Right to start a family that she goes on even the craziest date and climbs, slides and crawls through an amusement park with an extreme athlete a military training ground.
The romcom is undermined by feminist skepticism
Slapstick and pain just go together. Right at the beginning of the film, Karla holds a test with two strips in the camera, which is not about Corona. “Do you want a child now or what?!” asks her life companion. Apparently he prefers not to. “Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman,” says the soundtrack. The word “abortion” is not mentioned, but the song “Stand by Your Man” has rarely sounded wrong.
Two years and several lousy dates later, Karla decides to have a child without a man, which not only leads to crazy encounters with potential sperm donors, but also to conflict in her family. Pregnancy is still not a private matter! And then Karla also gets to know the dear nurse Ole (Aaron Altaras), with whom everything is right, just not the age – Ole is 28 and understandably doesn’t want a child after the first date. There is also stress with Karla’s alcoholic mother Marion (Ulrike Kriener) and her two sisters: the older one, Jule (Nora Tschirner), has three children and a husband whom she is cheating on, and the younger one, Johanna (Milena Tscharntke), is suffering panic attacks and burst into tears at the slightest shock.
That’s a lot of material and personnel for a comedy, so that “Simply Something Beautiful” almost inevitably breaks down into episodes – which doesn’t do the film too much harm though. The great cast helps over breaks, and the fact that Herfurth doesn’t take Karla and Ole’s love story overly seriously fits into the concept anyway: A smooth romcom, like the one the director staged in 2016 with her directorial debut “SMS für dich”, would have done well badly tolerated by the feminist skepticism of the director. Herfurth uses standard motifs such as panic at the last minute, dream weddings or horror dates to reinterpret the genre of romantic comedy. It’s not just love that counts. It’s also about female role models and expectations, which is why Herfurth is so interested in Karla’s sisters and their mother.
Mother Marion simply lets out female anger and despair
This mother, furiously played by Ulrike Kriener, is the good evil spirit of the story, she is allowed to let out all the anger and despair about the unreasonable demands that the world has in store for women in a wonderfully destructive way. Gorgeous how she shows up at her ex-husband’s (Herbert Knaup) wedding in a leo look, bitter and drunk, to the sound of Christopher Cross’ “Ride Like the Wind”. Of course she crashes the wedding, which isn’t half as funny as expected, because an unhappy, alcoholic woman isn’t funny.
Tousled by the wind: Nora Tschirner as Jule (left) and Karoline Herfurth (Karla) at her little sister’s wedding.
(Photo: Warner)
Again and again, the mother turns up at Karla’s apartment door and begs to be let in (her motherly love is toxic). Once a discussion begins with neighbors who happen to be passing by, about having children and being a woman, a wonderfully wacky scene. Which suddenly ends when Marion pronounces the S-word. S for scabbard. She shouts it out loud because it provokes more than anything else. Why actually? Herfurth had already addressed the fact that the woman’s body is a battle zone in “Wonderful”, which dealt with ideals of beauty. Here she expands the field to include questions of family and reproduction.
“Happy endings only exist in the cinema”, it is once said, but “Simply something nice” is not quite so pessimistic. Not only do Karla and Ole have romantic moments (the chemistry between the two actors is right). The director draws a wonderful picture of love above all – of all things – with Karla’s neurotic sister Johanna and her future wife. It’s the two of them whose wedding choreography is thrown upside down by a storm, Johanna is close to panic. “Stay with me,” she implores her lover and fixes her with her gaze. And despite objects flying around and guests fleeing, it suddenly seems to become quiet because one person is supporting another.
Just something nice, D 2022. Director: Karoline Herfurth. Book: Monika Fässler, Tim Hebborn, K. Herfurth. Camera: Daniel Gottschalk. With: K. Herfurth, Nora Tschirner, Milena Tscharntke, Aaron Altaras, Ulrike Kriener. Rental: Warner, 116 minutes. Theatrical release: 17.11.2022.