Wer’s glaubt, wird selig
Director: Marcus H. Rosenmüller
Writer: Jeremy Leven
Cast: Christian Ulmen, Hannelore Elsner, Marie Leuenberger, Lisa Potthoff, Fahri Ögün Yardim, Simon Schwarz, Nikolaus Paryla

Plot:
The little Bavarian village Hauzenberg is slowly dying out. They used to be a skiing ressort, but the snow has been lacking. So when Georg’s (Christian Ulmen) rather unfriendly but very religious mother-in-law Daisy (Hannelore Elsner) dies [she gets hit by a cross that falls off a wall because Georg fucks his wife Emilie (Marie Leuenberger) a little too enthusiastically], Georg has the glorious idea to get her declared a saint to get the tourism back in the area. But sainthood isn’t achieved that easily.

Wer’s glaubt, wird selig is a fun little movie. Nothing too great, nothing too bad, but it does have some very nice laughs and just the right amount of irreverence, so it doesn’t get too catholic for my taste.

There are a lot of clichés in this film. In fact, almost every character in it is a complete stereotype. I also wasn’t a big fan of the fact that they pretty much took all the action away from the women and it was all about they guys. And I had a hard time buying this benevolent pope (Nikolaus Paryla) who apparently has nothing much to do at all.

And of course the plot doesn’t really hold up to any kind of scrutiny at all. Nothing makes much sense and if you look at it more closely, it’s all extremely ridiculous.

But all of that didn’t matter that much as the movie is quite fun. Some of the situations are just so wonderfully absurd that you couldn’t help but laugh out loud. Plus, the performances are quite charming, especially Christian Ulmen and Fahri Ögün Yardim.

I also liked how they managed to straddle the line between sincere religious belief and the mockery of said religious belief. Whether you actually believe or not is never really an issue and the movie doesn’t preach at all. And that makes it really enjoyable.

Summarising: if you want some nice entertainment, you could do a lot worse.