Die beste aller Welten
Director: Adrian Goiginger
Writer: Adrian Goiginger
Cast: Jeremy Miliker, Verena Altenberger, Michael Pink, Michael Fuith, Lukas Miko
Seen on: 15.9.2017
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Plot:
Adrian (Jeremy Miliker) lives with his mother Helga (Verena Altenberger) and her boyfriend Günter (Lukas Miko) and things could be great. Unfortunately, Helga and Günter are both drug addicts, making all of their lives much harder. Nevertheless, Helga tries everything in her power to give Adrian the best life she can give him, filled with fantasy and adventure. But it’s clear that things can’t go on the way they are.

With Die beste aller Welten, Goiginger works through his own childhood and in this case, that’s the perfect recipe for a touching, beautiful film, even if it’s a difficult story to tell, especially because it goes as well as it does.

It’s obvious throughout the film that Goiginger knows the setting intimately and he manages to portray it without either glossing over the problematic parts, or judging the people involved. Life is difficult and they are trying, but they don’t always manage to get out of their own skins.

The cast he found is also amazing, especially Jeremy Miliker and Verena Altenberger. They seem entirely natural in their roles and their relationship with each other and are a strong anchor for the narrative. Without that, the film would have probably fallen flat on its face.

Nevertheless I found myself a little uneasy with the story because it’s such an exceptional thing. Most families where (some of) the members are addicted to drugs, don’t end up being a happy family, don’t manage to extricate themselves from the mess they’re in. And on the one hand, I’m all for giving them a story where things go well for drug addicts and their children for once, on the other hand, I can only imagine that it will heighten the pressure for addicted people when it comes to what they’re supposed to achieve and if they don’t, as most are likely to, they will feel even more like failures (as a lot of them are already). Since the film is based on an actual story, it feels a little silly to lay those concerns on it, but at the same time it was something I kept thinking about during and after the film.

Apart from that I really loved the film. I was emotionally invested at all times, I was rooting for them to make it and I loved how it sticks to Adrian’s perspective throughout and incorporates his interior fantasy world. It’s a beautiful film that shouldn’t be missed.

Summarizing: Really excellent.