Mermaids Don’t Cry
Director: Franziska Pflaum
Writer: Christiane Kalss, Franziska Pflaum
Cast: Stefanie Reinsperger, Julia Franz Richter, Karl Fischer, Nico Ehrenteit, Inga Busch, Johanna Kottulinsky, Jonas Gerzabek, Christoph Radakovits, Gerti Drassl, Alexander E. Fennon
Seen on: 11.7.2023

Plot:
Annika (Stefanie Reinsperger) works as a supermarket cashier together with her best friend Karo (Julia Franz Richter). The job is dreary and constantly threatened by her boss Mrs Biber (Inga Busch). At home, things aren’t really better as Annika lives with her alcoholic father Hermann (Karl Fischer) who pretends to be disabled. It’s only at the swimming pool that Annika can relax. There, she wears a mermaid tale, flirts with Marc (Nico Ehrenteit), and all is well. She dreams of owning a special tailor-made tail, but can’t really afford it. Still, she could try.

Mermaids Don’t Cry sits somewhere between tragedy and comedy, between fantasy and reality, brought to life by a great performance from Stefanie Reinsperger and a subdued sense for the strange. I really enjoyed it.

Mermaids Don’t Cry is the first movie by Franziska Pflaum and, I’d say, a promising debut. Although the plot is mostly predictable, the film draws you in and keeps you interested in the characters. With all around very good performances, there are two actors, though, that are almost magical in very different ways: Inga Busch who had me in tears with her portrayal of Mrs Biber, and Stefanie Reinsperger herself, who gives Annika the necessary vulnerability and strength to pull off the story.

As a fat woman myself, I’m always here for stories with and about fat characters. For the most part, Mermaids Don’t Cry relies on a couple of well-known tropes here: the flaky best friend and Annika’s role in Karo’s life is something that I would have liked a little more nuanced. But I loved that Annika finds her peace when swimming since pools are usually more places of horror for fat people. Plus, her self-esteem issues seem to have less to do with her figure than with her general life circumstances, another thing I definitely appreciated.

The film has a fairy tale touch to it, with outright fantastic (dream) moments that can be quite absurd. This contrasts with the realistic setting, allowing the film not to become poverty porn or drowning in the harshness of Annika’s life but rather giving everything a tinge of humor. With the ending, I expected them to go into a more fairy tale-ish direction, but that they took a turn for realism (not negativity) there, was the better choice.

There are some moments here and there that don’t work as well as the film overall, but altogether, it’s an enjoyable movie that makes me curious to see what Pflaum will do next.

Summarizing: very nice.