Miss Sixty

I liked this movie. The two principal characters are youngish seniors trying to find themselves, and they finally succeed. Although this is the first time I have seen her in a movie, think Iris Berben is a beautiful and classy actress.

"Miss Sixty" is a German 95-minute film from 2014, so two more years until this one has its 5th anniversary. It is the only directorial career effort by prolific producer Sigrid Hoerner and the writer is Jane Ainscough, a prolific screen writer actually. And I am baffled by how bad this film here turned out given the fact that she worked at almost the same time on the really well-done script for the film "Eltern" / "Parents". Anyway, I already talked about this one and now we focus on "Miss Sixty". The title is a reference to lead actress Iris Berben's character who is 60 years old in this film. But it is also a reference to a known jeans company and obviously they want to tell us with this title that Berben's character would look really nice in these tight jeans despite her age. If we are honest, Berben is an actress who has almost no range at all, plays the exact same character in every film she is in and has built her career in the last 20-25 years on herself looking a lot younger than she actually is. And still she is among the most famous and successful from her age group here in Germany, something like head of the German Film Awards body etc. Pretty unreal. But it is films like this one that turned her into who she is. She wants a baby at her age and this of course lets her also appear younger. The actress who plays her mother (Carmen-Maja Antoni) is only 5 years older, even if she looks 20 probably. The male protagonist (a man at the age of 60 too played by Selge) has a sex relationship going on with a woman under 30, but decides to leave her for Berben's character. The entire film is aimed at the sole purpose of teaching us what an attractive woman Berben is despite her age. And the most ironic moment of the film is probably when in one scene she says she never cared about looks, all about her intelligence and wit instead. I can really only shake my head at that. Story-wise, the film is completely uninteresting and has many cringeworthy moment. And the final negative deal-breaker at the end is when the central character suddenly says something like oh screw it I just won't have a baby out of nowhere completely after this was all she wanted the entire film. Oh yeah I also forgot the male protagonist wants to offer Berben's character his semen on a silver plate at the very end because hey it is Berben (an older equally untalented equivalent of Neubauer, Ferres and Thomalla) right the ultimate woman all men fall for. Cringe galore! And of course then she realizes when she finally basically has what she wants that it is not what she actually wants. And in my opinion this put a huge question mark on everything before that and makes the film's existence really obsolete. I can hardly think of any positive factors here. Maybe for the first hour, it was just a weak uninteresting film, but not really the mess it turned into eventually. Selge is a better actor than Berben, but not great either and she drags him down to her level all the time. This is really a film you don't want to see. Stay far far away. And a note to Mrs. Berben: Stay away from the singing, even if it is just during the closing credits.

Iris Berben,microbiologist, Louise, is fired, because her boss is having an affair with a co worker who hates her. She is 60 and has worked for 40 years. She meets Frans in the park where he needs her help to get up. She takes him to the doctor's office. She searches out a sperm donor for her frozen eggs. Bjorn von der Wellen, Max, is perfect, but he is Frans' son. There is a gallery showing of a man in a swing. The owner is gay, but Frans is not. Edgar Selge loves the gallery installer, Jordis Richter, but she sees him as a friend. Louise's mom, Carmen Antoni, is fun and looking to spend more time with her daughter. Pacing is perfect. Sigrid Hoerner has a top film.

You don't always have to have young people falling in love for a romantic comedy. You can do that through all age groups, with different backgrounds. Though this still feeds into many stereotypes (even though it makes fun of them from time to time, as the view of the woman, while still having that "Macho" man image throughout, even with little crackles here and there). The acting is fine, the script not that much. It's not bad and the actors can handle it, but we have more than a few bumps along the ride. The outcome is clear from the get go, though I do have to say I did like the last picture/frame the movie chose ... even if a bit clichéd ...

Moviecut—Miss Sixty