jay_hay

The film deals with identity and fame, and there's a sense of tension and awkwardness throughout much of the film, not limited to, but personified by Bruhl's character David Kern.

There was a lot about the film which I enjoyed, but several aspects of the film really didn't fit in terms of tone: clumsy, after-the-fact attempts to present the film as a romantic comedy (which it definitely isn't).

To give a few examples: several of the songs used in the soundtrack were much lighter and sunnier that the scenes they were matched to; the final scene of the film fit so poorly it was little short of schizophrenic (by which I mean the last 15 seconds or so). In a similar way the posters used to advertise the film are completely mismatched with the content of the film.

It was only relatively recently that I read the book that this film was based on ("Lila, Lila" by Martin Suter). Having enjoyed the book so much, I knew I would watch the film more critically than otherwise.

To finish on a positive note, I found Daniel Bruhl's interpretation of David engaging and I actually really enjoyed the plot variations in the film as opposed to the book.