Meine Tochter nicht
Director: Wolfgang Murnberger
Writer: Konstanze Breitebner
Cast: Lisa Martinek, Bernhard Schir, Nikola Rudle, Christopher Schärf, Mercedes Echerer, Karl Fischer, Raimund Wallisch, Max Schmiedl, Hary Prinz, Gerhard Liebmann, Sissy Höfferer
Seen on: 20.8.2016

Plot:
Maria (Lisa Martinek) and Paul Hofer (Bernhard Schir) have a great life – and a wonderful daughter in Nadja (Nikola Rudle). But shortly after Nadja’s sixteenth birthday, trouble arrives in the form of Nadja’s boyfriend Robi (Christopher Schärf). He is older and obviously from a social background that is nowhere near the Hofer’s lifestyle. But worst of all: Robi takes drugs – and he starts to drag Nadja into his addiction, despite her parents’ desperate attempts to keep her safe.

Meine Tochter nicht comes with a strong cast and hits some notes very accurately, but unfortunately loses almost all points in its resolution of the story and its moralizing tone.

[SPOILERS]

In my family, we do have experience with drug issues and watching the film with my parents brought a lot of these issues up again. And the film very accurately captures Nadja’s parents’ helplessness when faced with the situation. Nothing that they do can work without Nadja’s willing participation – and she refuses to go along with them. Both Schir and Martinek, but especially Martinek, make it easy to feel their desperation and frustration.

Unfortunately apart from that, the film loses itself in clichés a little too much. It’s never clear why Nadja – the nice daughter from a rich family who gets along with her parents pretty well – would fall for Robi (brilliantly portrayed by Schärf) in the first place – he’s already pretty deep into his addiction/working on not his first attempt at withdrawal, rarely a conducive state to meeting people and having them fall in love with you. But okay. She’s obviously buying into the whole “maybe my love can save him” story, it’s not entirely unlikely.

Much more damning is the fact that drug addiction in this film is painted as a problem of the lower classes that can affect innocent upper class children if their parents aren’t extra-cautious. Of course, Nadja would have never gotten into drug troubles if it hadn’t been for Robi. And her addiction doesn’t really have anything to do with her personally, it’s all just Robi’s bad influence. So when Paul finally pays Robi off to disappear and fulfill his lifelong dream of going to India (where he dies of an overdose, so is conveniently out of the picture forever), of course Nadja immediately acquiesces to all her parents’ demands, goes into rehab and is back to being the good little daughter in no time flat.

But honestly, things don’t work that way. To pretend that they do is insulting to pretty much everybody involved, oversimplifying and absolutely frustrating. It gives the entire film a preaching tone that is not only annoying in itself but preaches the wrong things to the wrong people. One could really do without that.

Summarizing: Skip it.