tragicomedy
“Over & Out” with Nora Tschirner and Jessica Schwarz
Road trip to Italy: Steffi (Julia Becker), Toni (Petra Schmidt-Schaller) and Lea (Jessica Schwarz) photo
© -/Warner Bros GmbH/dpa
How happy am I with my life? Three friends have to ask themselves these and other questions when they want to fulfill their friend Maja’s last wish.
From the bottom of their hearts, the four friends Lea (Jessica Schwarz), Maja (Nora Tschirner), Steffi (Julia Becker) and Toni (Petra Schmidt-Schaller) sing the Caught-In-The-Act song “Love Is Everywhere” through the night .
The four girls are drunk and sitting in the driveway of a family home when they are surprised by Maja’s mother (Sabine Vitua). When they were teenagers, they vow to celebrate all their weddings together.
More than 20 years later, Maja invites her friends to her wedding in Italy via video message. Rather reluctantly, the three friends, who have long since lost touch and lead completely different lives, embark on a road trip to Italy, which is intended to become an emotional roller coaster ride of feelings.
One last wish
When they get there, the three friends are in for a nasty surprise: Maja hasn’t invited them to their wedding, but to their funeral! And she also has one last wish for her friends: Lea, Steffi and Toni should kidnap her body before it is transported to Germany and hand it over to the sea at her place of longing on the Italian coast. In order to fulfill their friend’s last wish, the three pull themselves together and finally face the uncomfortable truths in their lives.
With her low-budget directorial debut “Maybe, Baby!” Julia Becker delivered a successful start as a director in 2017. In “Over & Out” the actress was again in front of the camera, directed and also wrote the screenplay. “I wanted to make a film about women, in which I can also find myself. My main characters are all strong characters who are not only cackling and colourful, but also have real problems – also apart from finding true love”, said Becker in the press kit. The film was shot in Hamburg, Lower Saxony and Croatia, which provided the backdrop for Italy.
envy and resentment
Jessica Schwarz (“Romy”) plays a frustrated businesswoman who is passed over for a promotion despite being better than her male colleague. Petra Schmidt-Schaller (“Leander’s Last Journey”) is a tough singer who is secretly in love with her manager. Julia Becker is the bored housewife and mother who occasionally has fun with the postman and Nora Tschirner (“Gut gegen Nordwind”) is a dropout who finds happiness in Italy. They all cling desperately to their life plans, although in truth they are quite unhappy. Instead, they look at each other’s lives with envy and resentment and make life difficult for one another.
Julia Becker, together with her excellent team of actresses, manages to give the tragic comedy the necessary depth and also a certain lightness. Nevertheless, one wonders why the female characters were drawn in such a clichéd way. In the meantime, for most women it is no longer a matter of deciding between children and a career, but many (and many men too) want to reconcile both – and that’s when the problems really begin. Nevertheless, the message of the film is of course correct: it would be nice if there were more solidarity among women and more tolerance towards the life plans of others.
Over & Out, Germany 2022, 109 min., FSK from 12, by Julia Becker, with Jessica Schwarz, Nora Tschirner, Petra Schmidt-Schaller