Subject: Forbidden
I tried really, really hard to like this one.
I wanted to, because this is the second real chick flick I've seen Prochnow in, and I kept having JEWELS flashbacks, and I kept thinking how much better this one was than JEWELS. But... it's just not good enough. And that is a shame, because the performances were excellent. The dialog was fine. Other than petty gripes, which I will detail later, there were three things wrong with this that I couldn't get past:
1. The story had no center. Once the premise was set up - it's WWII Germany, Fritz is a Jew and Nina isn't, and they fall in love, so she hides him from the Nazis - the whole thing goes nowhere. It's all filler until they almost get killed at the end. And you know what happens when you sit through a movie that's mostly filler and nearly two hours long. You start thinking how much it would perk you up if one or both of these people got shot to death.
However, I will add that it's perfectly okay with me that they didn't, because what with the threat of it happening and the fact that Jürgen finally got a nice scene to do that wasn't quite such a chick-flick scene - and he's really good at acting like somebody who thinks he's about to get his head blown off - I did perk up enough to get three-quarters of a warm fuzzy feeling about it, and then breathe a sigh of relief that the movie was finally over.
2. Was Fritz HIDING in Nina's house? Really? Because despite the fact that they kept talking about caution and so on, he, she, and the other fellow who also hid there temporarily made one hell of a racket. Which became a plot point once. Maybe in the movie their loud voices could only be heard through the walls on Tuesdays with a full moon in months with an R in them, but in real life their little hiding scam wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds. Especially since the huge ground-level windows were never covered properly, not even at night when the lights were on and Fritz was walking freely through the house.
3. I didn't like Jürgen's character a whole lot after I'd been watching him for a while. I just know that after the story ended, Fritz went into a cocoon and emerged later as Joachim von Mannheim. He wasn't as bad as Joachim, but the symptoms were there and firmly entrenched.
This is the only time I've ever watched a movie and thought the actors were too good in their roles. It occurred to me about the time I realized that the whole thing, after a decent start, was going downhill and I was trying to figure out why. I decided it was because the actors were trying to do a story, and the screenwriter wasn't.
This happened because the character development was adequate, but not great, and the pacing was flawed. The couple fall in love much too quickly and you have no reason to think their feelings aren't based solely on physical attraction. (Except that Nina is a maverick, so you figure part of her angle is she likes the idea of a dangerous relationship.) So they get together, and while this movie being rated PG-13 does not have especially racy love scenes, the love scenes are great. You get sucked right into that passion there, which pretty much confirms the suspicion that what these two mostly see in each other is a good roll in the hay.
But after Fritz goes into hiding in Nina's home, the strain of the situation starts to wear on them, and they bicker. Bisset and Prochnow were a little too good at that too. So later when he has a chance to leave Germany but bails out at the last minute... and they're both terribly happy that he did... the credibility factor isn't real high, only because the script had been concentrating on the deterioration of a relationship for some time and you never see the renewal. You expect him to stay on that train because they seem to have gotten pretty sick of each other.
But since they obviously both changed their minds at the same time for no reason, the movie meanders even more after that until it's all over.
I'm afraid this movie was intended to say something about the war and Nazi Germany and the human condition and all that, but it doesn't. Well, it's only rated PG-13 and I've probably seen too many good films and documentaries about the Holocaust to fall for this kind of thing. They just didn't do it right. You have to keep reminding yourself of everything that's going on in Germany that they DON'T show you in order to work up any kind of concern for these characters' safety, especially when they hide so loudly.
Petty annoyances:
Jürgen in a bowtie almost the whole time. I hate bowties on Jürgen, and someone knows that and is trying to kill me, because in nearly every scene that bowtie was crooked. AAAUUUUGH!!!
Bad music. I didn't look to see whose music it was, but it sounded an awful lot like the stuff in THE KEEP. I liked the music in THE KEEP well enough, but in FORBIDDEN it made me crabby. It's gotta go.
I saw one thing I'd have put on my list of Things I Never Want to See Jürgen Do, if I could have believed this was possible. He ran like a wimp. This is very upsetting. Well, it was a rather long dash, and toward the end he did put the speed on and run like Jürgen. He was running like Fritz for a while there, though, and even though I'd bet a million bucks that it was a "character" thing and/or a concession to the actor chasing him, who could never have kept up if Jürgen hadn't let him, it made me cry to see him swallow his pride like that. Ow.
I loved every minute of it...yes, even when he was in Mommy's house, emoting passion and nuzzling Jackie Bisset's face, sounding like an asthmatic schoolboy.
How, HOW could you "love" FORBIDDEN, with him playing a mama's boy and getting bulldozed by Jacqueline Bisset, who had to tell the fool what to do all the time? I HATE guys like that.
I loved it because I saw it first when I was but a callow romantic... and he was trying so hard to be a milquetoast...and he was so breathy and weepy and snot-nosed...I can't help it.
When you put it that way, I can't help but change my mind and agree with you. Mmmmmmmmmm, Fritz!
Though I must register an objection to the term "trying." Hell no, he wasn't trying - he was DOING it. Really well, like he plays all the kinds of characters he plays really well. And in this case, I wish he didn't.
On the other hand... line up Stoltz, Cane, Muller, Kapler, Berwid, Phillips, and yes, even Charlie Dowd in a nice neat row... take a good look... and then get a load of Fritz and Joachim. Iron-clad proof that Jürgen is too talented for his own good. (And for mine, when he's playing Fritzes and Joachims.)
You don't like to see a sniveling Jürgen?
Oh, you know I love seeing Jürgen snivel. I just feel that a sniveling Jürgen somehow lacks completion. He should snivel to throw an enemy off-guard and then head-butt him.
Let's see, firstly, if TANGERINE DREAM was a burlap sack full of kittens, I would DROWN IT. No lie. And I'll thumb-wrestle anyone who disagrees into submission at the nearest dive bar, just name the hour. ((THEY SUCK)).
I could insult them for days, but it's not worth my time. (They SUCK though).
But overall: not QUITE a success on the whole, but decent, with its celluloid heart in the right place, for sure.
Good Thing: Seeing Our Hero as a decent man, in a plump role.
Good Thing: Jackie Bissett - she WAS good, and attractive. How nice to see a grown-up relationship (when's the last time in a new release -- anybody??? Two years? Five? Ten? Nice to see a grown woman with a few lines on her face laughing and romping around a bedroom and having a good time and NO TEENAGERS in sight. Those were the days.)
Bad thing: How was this chick formed politically? How is it she's spouting all the requisite Allied propaganda (i.e. The True Bad News) from her position as a moneyed Berliner? And having what we would retro-actively recognize as all the correct PC reactions to that news? I mean, I want to believe there WERE people who felt the same way, at the real time, but I wish her status/knowledge/political personality was more fully brought to life and believable, as she would be a better investment for a viewer, instead of just a convenient short-cut to our modern viewpoint.
[OK: "Fritz walks by, I forget everything I ever learned at my German Mama's Jew-baiting knee and join the Underground." I can BELIEVE that IF Fritz is the first motivation (what good German Frau wouldn't lose her head over him? ) but she's already halfway there politically when she meets him, so it doesn't FLOW quite the way it should. "I was already PC, but now I get a swell boyfriend in the bargain! Good for me! I'm half-way to Himmel!" Whatever.]
Good Thing: the acting, overall, though I thought Worth was a bit on the hammy side. Yeah, I know she's a legend. Bite me. I didn't say she was BAD. I just thought she was showing off.
Bad Thing: Choppy narrative; i.e. I know what they were DRIVING at, but the black & white war footage didn't exactly meld seamlessly with the burps in the luv-story. It was ALTERNATELY a "relationship" film and a "war as metaphor for the human condition" flick, and not completely successful as either, at once. Just when you're getting caught up in their personal problems, you're treated to more stock footage o' bombers. A bit jarring, that.
Good Thing: Including homosexuals. (Editorial Opinion.) But again, a rather modern conceit, in many ways).
Not a bad job, at the end of the day. Really though, if they were going to tell this kind of story, they should have held out for a mini-series. It's just a wee bit episodic, (they need more TIME to tell this properly--you're filling in bits you know SHOULD be there, but you haven't actually SEEN in this film, from OTHER movies HAVE SEEN on the same subject, aren't you?). But earnest and creditable, by all means. (Compare it for one nano-second to the Naked Nazi-Lust Follies of JEWELS. Looks positively SWELL now, don't it? )
And what a pleasant surprise that the grafted-on mouth-breathing CHILD (intended to tug my non-existent heart-strings, I presume) at the end didn't turn out to FLAP HER JAWS INOPPORTUNELY and give away our Fitz-in-the-Box, which was the ONLY THING I expected after she made her first feeble, dewy-eyed entrance. A pleasant surprise!
One More Good Thing: A relatively HAPPY ending! Who ever would have thought, even if we are only treated to the fact through the much-abused device of the omniscient voice-over.