Vincent will Meer
Director: Ralf Huettner
Writer: Florian David Fitz
Cast: Florian David Fitz, Karoline Herfurth, Heino Ferch, Katharina Müller-Elmau, Johannes Allmayer
Seen on: 22.5.2023

Content Note: ableism, saneism, cripping up, eating disorder

Plot:
Vincent (Florian David Fitz) has Tourette’s. So far he was able to manage his life with the help of his mother and vice versa, but she recently passed away and his politician father Robert (Heino Ferch) has little interest in making his life more complicated by taking care of Vincent. Instead he arranges that Vincent will stay in a psychiatric facility. But Vincent doesn’t actually want to be there. He wants to travel to the ocean for the first time in his life – something he promised his mother. In a rash decision, he and another patient, Marie (Karoline Herfurth), steal a car and set off, even taking the fellow patient Alexander (Johannes Allmayer) with them, although he doesn’t want to. Followed by the head of the facility and car-owner Dr. Rose (Katharina Müller-Elmau) and Robert, the three break free.

It was not my pick to watch Vincent will Meer, and I probably wouldn’t have ever picked it because I was worried about the portrayal of mental illness and neurodiversity here. But circumstances happened, I saw the film and it was pretty much exactly as I expected: problematic representation to tell an uplifting, mildly inspirational story.

Fitz does not only play the protagonist here, he also wrote the script. He does not have Tourette’s, and the way he portrays it seems pretty stereotypical to me. Of course, there is the random shouting of swear words – pretty much the only tic that Tourette’s is ever associated with, though I doubt that it’s one of the more common ones. It certainly isn’t the only one. To be fair, Vincent has more tics than just that, but it all seemed to me so much like a vanity project for Fitz to show off how well he can act and not any serious engagement with Tourette’s.

I am willing to cut the film some slack for the fact that Vincent is put in psychiatric care, even though Tourette’s is not a psychiatric issue because this is bound to happen in real life as well, where lines blur and there just aren’t enough care facilities around. But the treatment of mental illnesses (an eating disorder in Marie’s case, and OCD in Alexander’s) is equally stereotypical. I particularly struggled with the way Alexander’s lines are continuously crossed, not only by Vincent, but also by Dr. Rose and it is somehow shown as essential to his treatment.

Stepping away from the representational element, I also took issue with the ending of the film. Vincent has spent his life so far trying to take care of his mother (and the other way round). Then the film sends him on this trip and he learns to be his own person, and that he can’t take care of everyone, especially not Marie who doesn’t want to be taken care of. Nice character growth, albeit a very sad perspective for Marie. And then at the last second, Vincent turns around to go and save Marie, utterly unraveling whatever point it was trying to make before.

But it all happens in the name of a good story. Mental illness and neurodiversity here are nothing but symbolism, meant to make the story more inspirational. It’s just shy of outright inspiration porn, but only just. And honestly, it’s just not that good of a story to make it all worth it.

Summarizing: you can safely skip it.