Meine erste Liebe

This movie takes the slogan "buy one get one free" to the extreme. It's basically two movies in one. First we have 55 minutes of a love story, which is nice, agreeable but somewhat superficial. I enjoyed it a bit but not too much. Either the characters were too shallow or the story too conventional or maybe I'm simply too old for that kind of "first love" movie.

I think there's just not enough passion or "chemistry" between the lead characters. You don't feel the love you are allegedly watching. The boy meets girl scenario works to some extent though so we are quite happy after they finally mate.

Yet at the happiest moment the movie literally flips the switch (here's it's the typical telephone call) and then drama ensues, tragedy strikes all over the place and we get lots of reasons to be sad delivered in fast succession. Or maybe it was just fast because I hit fast forward in those remaining 40 minutes.

It seems that after cutting the first 55 minutes the movie makers realized that they can't have a French film which is usually financed by the government deliver a happy message.

There must be something to learn from it, that life is hard and ends of with death so don't feel happy or you might lose it all. So better listen to what the government says because they keep you safe after all, don't they?

Or did the film maker decide that it would ruin his reputation to have a movie with a happy ending? No matter what the motivation was to add another completely different movie with the same characters to the love story: you can watch the first 55 minutes for free on Amazon and you don't have to buy the drama/tragedy meant to infuse sadness for another 40 minutes.