Love in Thoughts (2004)

good back-story, and good acting

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Recent years the German cinema did surprisingly well with some unexpected successes and this movie "Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken" tries to profit from this revelation but in no way it can be a contender. This story (based on a true facts) has already been filmed in the 20's and a second one during the 60's, but now director Achim von Borries claims that this is the definite version (what else could he say, anyway?). Everything is set in the twenties which was a good time for Germany as there was no sight from the dark forces that were to come. It was also the days of the rise of psychology and some youngsters (the most famous actor among them is Daniel Brühl who is appearing in almost every German film there is made these days) are building up their "suicide-club". The rules are simple but hard. Love is the only reason to live, love is the only reason to die for and therefore life must end if there's no love to be found and those who have betrayed that love will be taken in death as well. The love is at its most free vision as there is both homosexuality (which was back then immoral) and even incest. Von Borries could have made a very interesting film with this but it looked like it was more a trip into poetry rather than coming up with good cinema. The dialogs are far too bland, the acting sucks and it's filmed with such an uninteresting eye that it sets the viewer asleep. German cinema has found its reincarnation today but this film doesn't belong to that current wave.

First of all: I really enjoyed this movie. I found it great. Secondly: Yes, there are a few points you might want to critisise. The question is: Do you really care about these points? The pros definitely overweight the contras though.It was one of those movies I felt comfortable with from the first second on. It is slow, it is poetic and you have that constant feeling of melancholy and sadness surrounding you. It is kept in amazingly filmed pictures. The soundtrack simply stunned me. Not to mention the three main characters. It is nothing like any other german movie I have ever seen and I never felt like watching a german movie because it is made on an international, hollywood-like level (meant in a true positive sense!).To give any movie the label `based on a true story' is always a bit cheap. But I generously forget about that and enjoy `a story of two young men, lost in love and life'. Yes - clothes, haircuts and make ups might not (fully) correspond to what it was really like in the 1920ies. Their lifestyle shown and the emancipated way women behave, might have been to advanced for that time. But I just don't know. I could imagine wealthy people to behave like this, in the roaring Twenties, after World War I.If you like slow, poetic movies - you should give it a try. It very much reminded of `lost and delirious', it has got a bit of `dead poets society' and (the calm, peaceful moments in) `the thin red line'.But if you expect another of those `typical' german movies produced in the last few years (which I find great too) and which mostly have similar plots and a similar character, you might feel in the wrong spot.

I mostly agree with the reviewer who said that this is a "bad German" film. I came to expect a lot more from Daniel Brühl and August Diehl; Good Bye Lenin, Lichter, Vaya Con Dios and Das Weiße Rauschen showed that these two can REALLY play! The film left me quite indifferent and that really should not have been the case considering the story. The characters where so flat that I didn't really bother what happened to them. I have to disagree with the above quoted review in one point though. I thought that this was wholly different from a TV production cause the cinematography was really beautiful and stylish at times.Before the main film they showed the short film "True" by Tom Tykwer and strangely enough there was much more life in the 10 minutes of that film than in the 95 minutes of Liebe in Gedanken. You really shouldn't walk out of the theatre only capable of thinking about the pre-movie...

"Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken" is a fine made coming of age flick about a group young guys, who are playing with the Ideas of true love, the meaning of life and the question, if murder could be an expression of love. It tells a true story. And even if it set in the early 1930's, the questions and feelings witch are explored are timeless and that's why the movie is reaching us in our time and life. Daniel Brühl (good bye Lenin) and August Diehl (23) - both winner of the German actor-movie-award - playing their Part of the young feeling shaken men so touching and faithful, that you get to know, why they won their award. Brilliant Pictures, a great score, a touching story - a wonderful movie. This kind is a rare thing.