Review by HBB

The subject certainly is interesting, the plot has a solid pace. It's not all that often you see an actor/actress play the piano herself, on screen (save for the close-up in real difficult pieces), and come across as actually believable. Franka Potente does, and for both that and the plot I'd have like to give this one a vote of 8. But...

Unfortunately, the make-up department and the special effects crew committed some major crimes of negligence. First, the hair-do of supporting actress Katja Studt playing her role at an advanced age are almost _unbelievably_ bad. It really looks as if someone just jumped into a wig shop on their way to some other, more important business, and took the first one they saw without ever even thinking about how it'd look on a freckled redhead like her. I've seen carnival wigs look more believable than that one.

The other major downfall is an overwhelmingly obvious wax puppet of Franka Potente in a scene where both of her personae are on screen at the same time. I found it looked un-natural enough that it managed to drop the whole scene dead in its tracks. Couldn't help but stare at that puppet instead of paying attention to the movie itself.

Let-downs like that invoke the feeling you're watching a massively under-financed B-movie or student production. If you're a fan of Franka Potente and can tolerate some bad craft work, you'll quite probably like this movie a lot. I didn't.