TV tip
“Guests for dinner”: Facades fall with a crash
The actor Matthias Koeberlin plays the rich host in “Guests for Dinner”. photo
© Axel Heimken/dpa
The television investigator Matthias Koeberlin (“The Dead from Lake Constance”) shows his non-criminological side. He can be seen as the host in the social comedy “Guests for Dinner”.
A married couple invites another to dinner in their ultra-modern villa in Hamburg’s Elbe suburbs. So that we can get to know each other. Because one man’s teenage daughter is in a relationship with the other man’s teenage son. And because of the foreseeable social gap, the academic hosts Faber (Matthias Koeberlin and Neda Rahmanian) first of all, not to show off in their clothes.
The rather chubby Popovs (Maximilian Grill and Josefine Preuß), on the other hand, roar up dressed up on their motorcycles.
What begins with a friendly welcome champagne develops over the course of the evening into a real battle of human – not least erotic – depths and family secrets, not only at the dinner table. The late-arriving children (Paul Sundheim and Hannah Schiller) once again contribute something spectacular.
Screenwriter and director Carolin Otterbach tells this story in the film “Guests for Dinner” (Thursday at 8:15 p.m. on ZDF). And thus makes for a wittily entertaining, if a little thick, social comedy with a good cast in all roles. However, it has a major cosmetic flaw.
The plot structure is very similar to the recipe for success of the French playwright Yasmina Reza (“The God of Carnage”, 2006 – filmed in 2011 by Roman Polanski). Nevertheless, the Otterbach comedy opened the 19th German Film Festival in Ludwigshafen at the end of August. According to a statement, director Michael Kötz saw it as a “smart and excellently staged film on the subject of the ever-increasing social divide in society.” Here, the apparent superiority of the upper class is brought down with beautiful irony, as Kötz explained.
The social gap in German society
The main character Koeberlin (“The Dead from Lake Constance”), on the other hand, perceives the theme of the story as more of a timeless human character. “Our film shows a bit of the social divide that exists today – different classes, characters, approaches and everything that goes with it. But I believe that the problems and conflicts that result from this are repeated in all generations,” says Koeberlin in an interview with the German Press Agency. Therefore, it is “actually a universal story. It deals with problems that have existed since time immemorial.”
In his private life, the acting star is the father of a 16-year-old. That’s why he also gave a few extra thoughts to the teenage pregnancy that occurs in the film. He doesn’t want to mention the spontaneous panic reaction of parents Faber and Popov. Regarding the hypothetical case that his son would surprise him with such news, Koeberlin tells dpa: “I would have to swallow first because that is of course unusual. And like the film father, I would doubt that anything “What I told him about avoiding something like that fell on fertile ground. But I think I would then very quickly try to act in a pragmatic way.”
Parents should definitely be there for the young people and give them any help they can. “Everyone should come together and face the situation. Because there is definitely a solution for this too,” says the 49-year-old. “Guests for Dinner” was filmed in 2022 almost exclusively on private property, like a chamber play. Koeberlin has a very special memory of that – of the scuffles with his film wife Neda Rahmanian (“Fritzie – Heaven Must Wait”) in the swimming pool, as prescribed by the script.
“It was September – and we were promised that the water would be a little warmer. But it was definitely cold. And of course we had to rehearse a few times for an hour or two. So my cries for help weren’t faked,” says the actor with a laugh. And adds: “Dear Neda and I were really exhausted afterwards – even though there were towels and stiff grog in between.” Koeberlin’s conclusion: “Filming doesn’t always have to be fun – playing is also work.”