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Rating: Jaeckie Zuckerman's life is very similar to the wardrobe where I store and confine books, notes, and notebooks from my school years. Labels written at the time in beautiful and precious handwriting to separate subjects, stapled handouts, and hundreds of plastic envelopes overlap, intertwine now in a wild orgy with the immense Latin dictionary "IL" in the role of the undisputed star protagonist and director. I close the doors, trembling at the thought of when, sooner rather than later, I will have to decide to tidy up or set a big bonfire.
Dani Levy follows his friend and director Becker of "Good Bye Lenin" and offers us another story of post-unification East Germany, which becomes the stage for the escapades of a former sports journalist. After the collapse, he struggles to find a new balance in his messed-up life and often looks back wistfully, a glass in hand, at the good old days. An excellent Hubchen plays the character of Jaackie, while the desperate/in-love wife Hannelore Elsen and the clumsy, stuttering, and beefed-up son complete the family picture. In my humble opinion, there was enough material to unfold a comedy with dramatic points about the problem of adaptation, focusing on those who, on the other side of the wall, had managed to find their balance and now stumble, adapting as best they can and without much success.
Instead, it reverts to the cliché of black vs. white. The worn-out formula of opposites emerges, in fact, when hereditary needs clash Jaeckie's family with that of the hated, orthodox, and forgotten brother forced to spend the 7 days of strict Jewish mourning under the same roof. From here begins the predictable downward spiral that further wrecks finances and hopes of a possible family reconciliation. It's at this point that we are reminded it is a comedy. In a saccharine "let's love each other" perspective, timely, here come, copiously, the lifelines born of a screenplay, alas particularly forced, to try to start climbing out of the abyss we had ended up in. To reassemble the puzzle started, with ad-hoc fits, and thus put it proudly on display above the crackling fireplace to seal the moralistic happy ending.
The film is not, however, a failure. It achieves a solid pass, which I reserve the right to translate into the correct number of stars, thanks to a good overall performance by the actors. The folkloric music well accompanies the varied rhythm of the scenes, and objectively, there are some gags capable of providing moments of pure hilarity. This does not change the fact that I sincerely expected more, and that this "Zucker! How to Become a Jew in Seven Days" takes on the bitter connotations of a missed opportunity.
ilfreddo
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