Das Vaterspiel is an adaptation of Josef Haslinger‘s book of the same name, directed by Michael Glawogger and starring Helmut Köpping, Sabine Timoteo, Ulrich Tukur, Christian Tramitz and Otto Tausig.

Plot:
Das Vaterspiel tells the intertwined history of three families during and after WW II. Ratz [translates to rat] (Helmut Köpping) is struggling with daddy issues – his father (Christian Tramitz) is a successful politician and quite overwhelming in his presence. To get over this, Ratz developed a computer game, where he can kill his father over and over again and which he tries to market unsuccessfully. When Ratz gets a call from the mysterious Mimi (Sabine Timoteo), whom he used to study with, to come to New York and help her with the rebuilding of her cellar, he grabs the chance and leaves. Once there, though, he discovers that Mimi is hiding her grandfather (Otto Tausig) in said cellar. The grandfather fled Europe after the Nazis were overthrown and fears persecution.
This story is intercut with the interview of a man (Ulrich Tukur) telling his family’s story in Lithuania during the war and how his father was killed.

Josef Haslinger is one of Austria’s leading literary figures and Michael Glawogger one of the most renowned Austrian directors. So I expected a lot from this movie (without having read the book itself). Unfortunately, I was gravely disappointed. The movie is unfocused, the acting (with the exceptions of Ulrich Tukur and Otto Tausig) is sub-par, the casting sucks and the story is just plain bad.

Let’s talk about the casting first: How they could cast Helmut Köpping – who looks to be about 40 – and then have him play the mid-thirties AND the 18-year old Ratz is absolutely beyond me. And then make the make-up such that he actually looks older as the 18-year old than as the 30-something-year old. This is especially since they cast Christian Tramitz as his father. Christian Tramitz may be already 50 but he looks easily 10 years younger than he is. Which leads to the effect that the father looks younger than his 18-year old son. That’s just bad.

Which leads me neatly to the acting. If Helmut Köpping was the actor, I might have understood, but he isn’t. He makes nice movies as a director, but acting is not his forte. And Christian Tramitz, who is usually really good, blowed in this film. Sabine Timoteo (who plays quite a self-absorbed asshole, which is really sad since she’s the only fully developped female character in the movie and frankly, it’s one that smacks of sexism) speaks with such a little girl voice that I wanted to kick her all the time.

The thing that kept me going (apart from not being alone in the movies but with my mother and sister [my mother, btw, hated it, too and my sister liked it]) was Ulrich Tukur. I mean, he doesn’t have to act much in this film, he’s telling a story, not acting it, but he does it so well…  [Also, I kind of have a crush on him right now.] And Otto Tausig was great, when he finally got to do something. [Half of the film, he sits around and looks. It’s all he does, he refuses to speak a word in the first hour or so of the movie…]

The story itself… well. Maybe it had something to do with my glowing hatred of all the characters (except Ulrich Tukur’s) but I couldn’t care less about the story. And the ending seemed frankly ridiculous to me.

And another thing that was ridiculous: The computer game – it looked like it was from the early 90s, but he then sold it over the internet so I don’t think it actually was supposed to take place during the early 90s.

It annoyed me immensly that when Ratz finally confronts the grandfather, [SPOILER] the grandfather says that he regrets nothing – and he gets the last word. [/SPOILER]

All in all, a complete disappointment.