In his darkly comic directorial debut, Daniel Brühl (Goodbye Lenin, The Falcon & The Winter Soldier) plays a version of himself to skewer celebrity, privilege and the movies.
Daniel (a self-deprecating Brühl) leads an enviable life. A famous actor, he lives in a stylish penthouse apartment in Berlin’s hip Prenzlauer Berg district with his wife and children. One morning, as he prepares to jet off to London to screen-test for a ‘top-secret’ new American superhero blockbuster, he pops into the local dive bar to kill some time. There, he meets middle-aged Bruno (a deliciously sardonic Peter Kurth, Babylon Berlin), initially dismissing him as a fan.
But far from it, Bruno is in fact Daniel’s neighbour, and has been awaiting this moment. As the two banter, Bruno begins nitpicking the increasingly exasperated (and now late for his flight) Daniel’s career, gradually revealing a far more intimate knowledge of Daniel’s life than is comfortable…
Written for the screen by best-selling German author Daniel Kehlmann, Brühl’s two-hander combines verbal sparring with Schadenfreude for a wryly entertaining comedy of wits and secrets that will have you going home and making sure you know who lives next door.
Tuesday 25th May
92 min
15+
Film Festival
