"A Coffee in Berlin" / "Oh Boy" (2012)

Film Review: 'A Coffee in Berlin'

Reviewed online, June 4, 2014. (In 2012 Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary, AFI film festivals.) Running time: 85 MIN.(Original title: “Oh Boy”)

Crew

Directed, written by Jan Ole Gerster. Camera (B&W, widescreen), Philipp Kirsamer; editor, Anja Siemens; music, Major Minors, Cherilyn MacNeil; production designer, Juliane Friedrich; costume designer, Ildiko Okolicsanyi, Juliane Maier; sound, Magnus Pfluger; sound designer, Felix Andriessens; supervising sound editor, Fabian Schmidt; re-recoring mixer, Adrian Baumeister; stunt coordinator, Martin Goeres; visual effects supervisor, Jean-Michel Boublil; associate producers, Gerster, Timon Modersohn, Tom Schilling; assistant director, Timon Modersohn.

With

Tom Schilling, Friederike Kempter, Marc Hosemann, Katharina Schuttler, Justus Von Dohnanyi, Andreas Schroders, Arnd Klawitter, Martin Brambach, R.P. Kahl, Lis Buttner, Theo Trebs, Katharina Hauck, Steffen C. Jurgens, Sanne Schnapp, Frederick Lau, Ulrich Noethen, Michael Gwisdek.

Reminiscent of some of the most notable American voices to emerge from Sundance in the decade after “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” Gerster didn’t set out to write a story that would describe the zeitgeist. Rather, the project originated with the creation of a likable, relatable character whom audiences have found enormously easy to embrace: Niko Fischer, law-school dropout and all-around slacker, living off his father’s allowance while he passively hopes something will come along to spark his interest.
Much of Niko’s appeal owes to Tom Schilling, a former child actor, now 32, who turns a well-rounded, reasonably flawed guy coasting through his own post-college, pre-career purgatory into a compelling enough figure to follow — the way Holden Caulfield and Young Werther were in their respective epochs. Schilling is handsome in a spindly James McAvoy sort of way, his greasy hairswept to one side of a baby face he can get away with shaving once every other day.
We meet Niko on the brink of a low-energy breakup: His g.f. offers to make him coffee, and he lamely struggles to find an excuse to slink out, claiming, “I’ve got a million things to do.” In truth, Niko doesn’t have much of anything going on. Together with Vince Vaughn-like buddy Matze (Marc Hosemann), he could be the poster boy for those who’ve managed to make unemployment a full-time job: He spends far more effort avoiding having to work than most people do actually going into an office, compounded by the humiliation of constantly trying to justify his lifestyle to his father and other authority figures.
Although the tone is generally comedic, buoyed along by snatches of jazz music that give Niko’s situation a relatively carefree vibe, his situation is actually quite alarming. The business with his g.f. spells an inability to form attachment, a meeting with a psychological counselor reveals a pattern of drunk driving and so on. Generally speaking, Niko’s interactions with others — from the actor friend (Arnd Klawitter) playing a “good Nazi” in yet another World War II drama to the fat-camp survivor (Friederike Kempter) they called “Roly Poly Julia” back in grade school — reveal the sort of ironic detachment that once led Bart Simpson to quip, “We need another Vietnam to thin out their ranks a little.”
Gerster’s decision to film in black-and-white lends a melancholy romance to Niko’s various encounters, infusing even a scene where he’s seen flushing leftover meatballs down the toilet with a measure of introspection. Between humorous episodes, the helmer gives Niko time to reflect, lingering on cigarette breaks and that ongoing search for a coffee he can’t afford. (At one point, in a scene worthy of Buster Keaton, he considers nicking some change from a sleeping beggar.) While Berlin affords Niko the unique privilege of leading a reasonably comfortable life on very little money, his kind can be found all over the world, and in that respect, the film feels like a late, lost chapter from the French New Wave or a kindred spirit to so many DIY indies, served up with a wry smile and a German accent.

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