Immer nie am Meer
Director: Antonin Svoboda
Writer: Christoph Grissemann, Dirk Stermann, Heinz Strunk, Antonin Svoboda, Jörg Kalt
Cast: Christoph Grissemann, Dirk Stermann, Heinz Strunk, Philip Bialkowski, Christopher Schärf
Seen on: 15.10.2016

Plot:
Baisch (Dirk Stermann) is an archaeology professor who believes that his ex-wife will at one point want him back. His ex-brother-in-law Anzengruber (Christoph Grissemann) is less uptight than Baisch and pretty sure that ex will stay ex, but comes with his own problems. The two of them met at an event and are now on their way back into town. They stumble upon Schwanenmeister (Heinz Strunk), a musician/comedian, who hitches a ride with them. And then they crash their car and while they end up unhurt, they are unable to leave the car. And so the three men are trapped with each other – and tensions will have to rise.

I liked the idea of Immer nie am Meer, but the film was a homophobic, antiscientific and unfunny mess that dragged more than its short runtime should have made possible.

I was hesitant about seeing this film at all in the first place, seeing as I am not a fan of Stermann and Grissemann – a very famous comedy duo in Austria. Their sense of humor is usually not my thing as they always cross one line too many, go that step too far and punch their way down every once in a while. But I figured I’d give this film a chance, mostly because I loved Svoboda’s Spiele Leben.

I obviously shouldn’t have. The film is pretty much everything I feared it would be and it is also awful in some ways that surprised me. Mostly I really didn’t expect the constant bashing of science we got whenever the film turned towards Baisch and his job. (If anything, I would have thought that Stermann and Grissemann would fall on the atheist-science-Dawkins-bro side of the spectrum.) As somebody who works at university, this is a bit hard to bear.

And when the plot introduces the young Toni (Philip Bialkowski), things got even harder for me because I know a bit about the foster system in Austria and the entire thing was tropey and problematic and left me with open questions like why the boy was in foster care in the first place and how come he gets picked up so suddenly again?

There are some moments that were entertaining even for me. And I guess, if you genereally like Stermann and Grissemann and their style of comedy, you will like this film. But I couldn’t like it. Not a bit.

Summarizing: Only for Stermann and Grissemann fans.