Frances Herr would be a good title for this black-and-white indie, focusing as it does on a twentysomething Berliner (Tom Schilling) every bit as aimless and unmotivated as Greta Gerwig’s Big Apple ditz.
Yet Jan Ole Gerster’s deceptively slender character study has a complex undertow, subtly linking its wallflower anti-hero’s acceptance of his failings with his country’s wider atonement for its World War II past.
Set over the course of a single day, the film sees the numbly passive Niko encounter a lively cross-section of Teutonic oddballs in his amusing pursuit of an elusive cup of coffee. Worth seeking out.
