Charlie & Louise

The story of Erich Kästner is transfered to the presence and some differences are added which obviously should reflect the society reality of contemporary Germany: Wheras in Kästner's story the father is a successful composer who lives in old fashioned prosperity and, and the mother is a modern and hard-working journalist who lives in more simple conditions, now it's the mother who is very successful whereas the father is unsuccessful as an composer and quite chaotic. Other differences: In Kästner's story and the earlier film the girls meet in Bavaria whereas nowadays it's more likely to send children to Scotland for vacation. The differences aren't obtrusive and seem reasonable - as opposed to the 2001remake of another Kästner story, Emil und die Detektive / Emil and the Detectives which tries to ingratiate itself with the nowadays audience in a very fashionable and superficial way. This one instead manages to keep faith to Kästner and the atmosphere he wanted to create then. Certainly it's a mainstream entertainment film, and it's not a great one (like some Astrid Lindgren films by Olle Hellbom) but entertaining it is and it's sometimes even quite moving indeed, the old story has some good turnarounds and ideas which don't spoil the original story and the actors are very good and take it seriously. All in all it's a nice film: 6 out of 10

"Charlie & Louise" is a modern version about twin girls separated at birth and accidently stumbling upon each other - this time during a language course in Scotland. Of course, they don't like each other at first - that is, until they find out they're twins. As they want to get to know their respective other parent, what's the obvious result?

Although the storyline is rather old ("invented" by Erich Kästner in the 1950s), this film, playing in the 1990s, is still amusing and funny. Even touching at some points. Friederike and Floriane Eichhorn as Charlotte and Louise are acting rather well, a number of lines really make you laugh.

I can recommend this film to all people who like comedy/family movies. It's German only, however!