Azizler - Alle zusammen für sich

I have been impatiently waiting for this movie since the first day I heard about it, because I love every single person, who is in the movie. However I didn't like the movie.

I believe the movie looks like a great project on paper, but for some reason the directors and writers failed to convey that to us. There are some ridiculous scenes that have no place not only in this movie, but in any movie. I watched every second of it with the hope that it would get better and everything would make sense in the end, but unfortunately I finished it quite unsatisfied and utterly disappointed.

I don't understand how absurdity is very popular in Turkish movies, yet nobody has ever used it deservedly. For instance in this movie, you see absurdity being used excessively and very unnecessarily so that it gets impossible for you to get involved. It is also partly because of the characters that were written down and dirty.

One of the writers Berkun Oya already proved his great ability to write thanks to very succesful series Innocent and Ethos that he wrote himself, but for some reason he could not show this ability in this film. Collaboration of the directors Taylan brothers with the actors Engin Gunaydin & Binnur Kaya was also much better in Vavien, which is one of my favorite Turkish movies. Therefore Stuck Apart is unfortunately nothing but a disappointment for me.

Not an easy one to process and enjoy comprising elements of absurd comedy. Great casting and good acting all the way to the end. Could have been a masterpiece with some changes in the music and a bit more of an emphasis on drama rather than comedy.

Lets be honest, you are all asking yourselves what did I watch? How were these actors cast in this, and who funded it?

But first some backstory... This film was the first writing credit for the Taylan brothers, and they unapologetically gave us an avant-garde Turkish character study. In Turkey there are two types of stories; the traditional 3 act structure that most of us are used to called the "Olay Oykusu" OR the character study / "glimpse into the life of" pieces that have a very thin plot, and spend more time on character, called "Durum Oykusu". Azizler my friends, is the latter, a story where we glimpse into the ridiculous and unbelievable lives of our protagonists. Although this version of storytelling is dominant in biographical stories (Roma, Kaybedenler Kulubu) it is rare to see this format in a minimalistically fantastical world - and lets all be honest, it was too bizarre. As for our actors, this type of story is where they truly get to flex their acting muscles since the movie depends on it and they have quite the range to do what they want.

Since this is the first writing piece from the Taylan brothers, one can assume that they are still fine tuning their skills and that they have more to grow. Thankfully Netflix has enough cash to throw at them, probably for the sake of creating a relationship and I assume gave them final cut. This resulted in a 6/10 film that was too off the beaten path for its own good. Will you like this film if you don't watch award films? No. Will you watch this because it is all the A-listers best work? Probably not. Should you get baked before watching this? Absolutely... But what did you expect - actually though what did you expect?

If you watch this movie, you should do so for the views and so that Netflix spends more money in Turkey. Maybe if enough of us watch these Turkish films, Netflix might greenlight a "Roma" of our own.

The expectations were quite high for this movie since the writers, directors and cast are all well-known names with a good reputation in the Turkish movie industry. However, the expectations weren't met and this affected the experience badly beyond the actual quality of the movie.

In fact, this movie is a nice drama. And if it were a pure drama instead of trying to be an (absurd) comedy at the same time, I think it would be a great movie. Even though making a good drama movie should be harder than making a comedy movie; failing in comedy is also easier and as simple as failing to make people laugh. Unfortunately, Azizler(Turkish) or Stuck Apart failed on that for the most part. Besides, absurdity in this movie felt over the top and unnecessary. One might say that this over the top absurdity harmed the comedy further or even the succeeded drama. All in all, these factors contributed to the fact that absurd comedy and drama didn't match well for this one.

Whereas the drama around "loneliness" was pretty solid. We have characters with different types of problems with loneliness and this contrast gives a nice depth to the story. The acting overall was pretty good too, as expected. Engin Gunaydin as the leading role was flawless. Haluk Bilginer was also great as "Erbil". I truly liked Erbil and his character background was beautiful.

In conclusion, if you remove or ignore the discordant absurd comedy parts, you will have a well-done drama. So I think this movie still worth a watch. But as a drama rather than a comedy.

Going in blind, I quite enjoyed this movie. Sure, it has it's shortcomings but no way near the hate it's getting here. I don't think this movie was intended for Turkish audiences, who are very vanilla most of the time when it comes to any form of art. I don't know what this movie claimed to be during the advertising period but if you watch it expecting a "normie" comedy, you'll be disappointed. That exact reason is why I enjoyed it. It can be called dark comedy-ish I guess, labels don't matter to me. The art direction was quite beautiful and the acting was decent, as expected from a cast of veteran actors. Comparing this to the dumpster fire that was Leyla Everlasting is a blasphemy.