Nach Fünf im Urwald

Hans Christian Schmid directed with sure hand and light touch this funny and very enjoyable coming of age comedy. Well, coming of age?; not only the Potente character is coming of age during her stay in Munich, the parents as well are finally coming of age. That is: Schmid tells us that one is never too old to be young. In the end both young and old have done a lot of innocent mischief.

Schmid shows us that adulthood is not something that has to do with age and doing mischief does not mean one is no adult. He shows us young people who can not behave, but also a neighbour who in his small-mindedness is of child-like mind. The macho doorman at the disco shrinks when the mother uses verbal bluff. With these scenes and others like these Schmid very quietly makes his point.

At times the film can not avoid cliches like the scenes in the house of production manager Nick; ah yes, of course Zille has slept with Nick. The people the Potente character meets during her Munich stay should have been more thought-out, they are no more than standard characterizations. The well-written script has a couple of fine ideas; these include the Janis Joplin inspired commercial and the cynic comments by the young girl Clara in her diary entries. If you ever want to see a dead hare blown dry by a hair drier, watch this film.

The great Franka Potente leads a very good cast with a very good Thomas Schmauser as Simon.

This film combines really funny ideas. You can see that the film makers didn't have a big budget, but that makes "Nach Fünf im Urwald" even more charming. This will especially be very interesting for you, if you've seen "23 - Nichts ist so wie es scheint" (1998) or "Lola rennt" (1998), because this film was the debut for "23"'s director Hans-Christian Schmid and for Franka "Lola" Potente. Girls, watch out for Max Urlacher as Ben, he's SO cute!