Friendship!

I understand that most people won't get too excited about this movie. There is a lot of subtle humor in it that requires some knowledge of how life was in East Germany, what things like "Mondos" were for instance, in order to appreciate the jokes. One may argue that the movie has overdone some of it. I think it was highly unlikely that two East German guys walked up to the immigration officer at a New York airport and state that they are communists. People in East Germany knew that this wouldn't be a smart move. But, hey, it is also rather unlikely that a US official asks a German bluntly if he was a Nazi. And there are a few other details that might be historically incorrect. Whatever! Getting into this kind of discussion does not do justice to the movie. I had a great time watching it. Many things reminded me of my own first trip to the states mere months after reunification. Besides, it is a road movie with beautiful pictures and sceneries from the American province. And the ending with its twist is indeed quite strong. It turns out that the movie title "Friendship!" is not only a reference to the official greeting within the communist youth organization in East Germany. This picture is also literally about friendship.

I didn't know what the story was about, but during the course of the movie I got the feeling this was based on a true story. And yes it does, though you would have guessed the movie could have come a bit earlier, considering the real story took place after the fall of the Berlin Wall (which happened 20 years before this movie were released theatrically) and is practically a road movie.

And as it is with Road movies, you get introduced to characters and only get a glimpse of (most of) them. Of course there is a goal to achieve, though the trials and tribulation they go through don't seem too hard. And the money issue does not seem to be any at all at times. But you might not even care about details like that. And one thing is for sure, the ending has some impact to it (although I feel it could have been stronger).

First of all this movie is not a comedy... The complex that niutta-enrico suffers from, can be healed elsewhere and with different methods, not with hate-spewing over the web, especially not on movies that don't deserve it. But let me get back to the movie. As i said the comedy, or the comedic parts if you will, in this movie are put there to hide the depressive nature of the movie and sadly our world as it is, and it is a perfect example of how should one handle life and living on this planet. We should try to overcome every depressing and negative thing with a bit of comedy otherwise we will all lose the point of life, cause there isn't one anyway.

Other thing that i liked very much - the director did a really good job to try to explain people's different behaviour on a pretty much stright-forward theme, i.e. we (people) form oppinions biasedly, as much as we want to think that we are open minded, and forward-thinking it is impossible for us humans (since we are emotional beings) to not get attached to a certain topic based on the tellings/re-tellings and expiriences of our close ones. Thus, it is almost impossible in this vast world, to not have hate built in to us for a certain thing. Only when we all get this we will have a 'pink' world. Other thing that was done very well in the movie, was the jumping between behaviours, as it is in the real life, since we are emotional beings it is imposibble to not get in fight with someone that we spend a lot of time with, which doesn't mean that we should give up, but on the contrary to try to understant our behaviour at the moment, ant try to find out why has it deviated, and never never give up, no matter what the situtation before you is. I should have sad this in on sentence but it would be the cliche line - "We shouldn't give up on anything, just because some ishes happened, but on the contrary we should always have positive state of mind, no mather the circumstances" and only this will lead us to the promise land - eternal happiness.

I would just like to end this, calling out the other reviewers, and say that i'm very sorry that myself, being at least half a life younger then them, am grasping the point of life, and i should've learned from them... ha... The irony.... With this last sentence i also wanna add - "Don't tell anybody dissapoint you in life", but try to taste/view/experience anything and everything before forming an opinion.

So just enjoy life, and if you haven't please watch this movie, especially if you are in bit of a crossover on your life. Shoutout to Markus Goller - You did an excellent job on this one. Keep up the good work, and of course, no need to tell you, to not get demotivated from reviewers like these :D.

Thank you for this life changing experience :)

It's not that funny, but it's not that bad either.

A German movie about a road trip from New York to San Francisco: unfortunately nothing is really interesting in this movie: not the acting, not the gags, not the story itself.

The overall result is under the usual standard for a comedy and this is a pity because the subject (two youngsters from east Germany traveling trough America after the fall of the Berlin wall) was promising and could have inspired a much better plot.

To further enhance the sense of estrangement Matthias Schweighöfer bears a weird resemblance with Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth from 'Game of Thrones') in some scenes.

I wonder if I missed something which is understandable only by German speakers but I doubt it: fun is a Universal language.