Let me say right off that How About Adolf? (aka Der Vorname) is the most hilarious dialogue-driven comedy I’ve seen in many a year. It is an outright hoot! This is true even though it’s in German and one has to read subtitles to get a lot of what’s funny. The spouse and I were laughing so hard, we had tears rolling down our cheeks.
The premise is simple and the setting not at all uncommon – a family dinner party that goes off the rails. But the dialogue is witty and sharp, the pacing just perfect for a comedy and the acting is spot-on. There are four key characters, all of whom are cleverly fleshed out during the course of the proceedings.
The dinner is hosted by Elizabeth (Caroline Peters), who teaches German at a middle school while also acting as cook, social secretary, domestic admin and counterweight to her husband Stephan (Christoph Maria Herbst), a proud professor of German literature of the kind who takes himself way too seriously - in fact, a pompous windbag. (Their two children have been sloughed off to some friends for the evening.) One of the guests is Elizabeth’s younger brother Thomas (Florian David Fitz). Thomas is Stephan’s opposite – a bright, very un-bookish and (no surprise) financially successful real estate salesman, who finds Stephan’s intellectual posturing laughable. Then there’s René (Justus von Dohnányi - great name!), Caroline’s closest friend since childhood (she calls him “the sister I never had”), a clarinetist with the Bonn orchestra, cultured, charming, dapper – in fact, he arrives at the party directly from a performance still in his white tie and tux, set off with a flamboyant orange sik scarf. Although largely unknown to American audiences, all these actors are seasoned professionals and completely believable.
Stephan and his wife, Anna (Janina Uhse), an actress who will arrive later, are expecting a baby boy. What sets things off is Stephan’s feigned reluctance to reveal the name he and Anna have chosen for the baby, He suggests instead that the others try to conjecture the name, which sets off a pretty funny guessing game
The story and much of the screenplay is based on a hit French play by Alexandre de La Patellière called Le Prenom ("The First Name") which he later adapted into a French film (that La Patellière also directed) in 2012. That movie is available under the English title What’s in a Name? The German version under review here was released in 2018 called Der Vorname, which has been re-titled for American release as How About Adolf? Unfortunately, this gives a little away, but it doesn't really matter.
The name game is entertaining and its tumultuous aftermath of surprise and disapproval is (to put it mildly) uproariously funny. One IMDB user review is succinctly entitled “Well, that escalated quickly!”, which pretty well sums up the sublimely farcical first act of the film. Then, in the second act, the topic shifts - as each family member in turn, out of indignation or outrage or perhaps both, finds him or herself blurting out increasingly explosive secrets to considerable hullabaloo. By the end of the evening, the gathering has covered a plethora of issues beyond baby naming, among them gender orientation, taboo affairs and male chauvinism. All are turned to comedic gold.
Imagine, if you can, the domestic psychological drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, as a witty, sidesplitting verbal comedy, and you’ll have some idea what you’re in for. Yes, it is vicious and even dark at times, but brilliantly played for laughs it’s just hysterical - quite a treat. For those who’ve seen it, How About Adolf? is that rare comedy the mere mention of which brings back a grin or a smile.
[As to the relative merits of this German version rather than the earlier French What’s in a Name, it’s hard for me to say. I watched the first half hour of the French movie a couple weeks after How About Adolf?, and it was very, very similar – not surprisingly, as both pictures derive from the same play. Also, because I already knew the story, there was little for me in the way of surprise the second time around. Both movies get favorable scores from other viewers. Still, I’d lean in favor of the German How About Adolf? – because of the superb casting and the superior comic acting.]
1 hour 34 minutes
Grade: A
How About Adolf? is available free with a subscription to Kanopy or to rent on Amazon ($2.99) or Apple tv ($4.99).
[The 2012 French version, What’s In a Name?, is 1 hour 49 minutes and available free with a subscription to Amazon Prime, Kanopy or Hoopla or to rent ($3.99) on Amazon, Apple tv, Google Play and other streaming services. ]
No comments:
Post a Comment