(The 2026 SXSW Film Festival ran March 12-18 in beautiful Austin, TX. Check out Chris Reed’s Thanks for Nothing movie review, fresh from the fest. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
In her debut feature, Thanks for Nothing, German director Stella Marie Markert crafts a vibrant narrative about the pain and joy of growing up, pros and cons alike. With attempted suicide as its inciting incident, the film may be triggering for some viewers, but underneath the trauma beats the heart of an offbeat comedy where friendship triumphs over everything. Throw in a beautifully realized production design plus solid performances and we have all the ingredients for an engaging mix of laughter and tears.
The friends are four in total: Katharina, Ricky, Vicky, and Malou. We learn each of their backstories in turn, starting with Katharina (Lea Drinda), whose near-fatal popping of pills kicks us off. The young women share an apartment—a state-supervised group-living arrangement—all of them refugees from orphanages and foster homes. As they approach 18, the circumstances that brought them together threaten to tear them apart and, possibly, ruin their futures.
But not to worry, for there are plenty of zany shenanigans along the way. Ricky (Safinaz Sattar) may have been abandoned by her Turkish parents after their deli was shut down—to be fair to them, she asked to stay—and may also have an unrequited crush on Katharina, but she has big dreams and a hot girlfriend to boot. Still, there’s the lagging issue of her immigration status to worry about.
Victoria (Sonja Weißer)—aka Vicky—is decidedly the most Bohemian, and also the richest, though the full details of her monied interests only come out later. She has a crush, too, and this one is more problematic, as the object of her affections is the much-older Ballack (Jan Bülow), who is the group’s assigned supervisor. Good thing he doesn’t mix work with pleasure. Or does he?
And then there’s the silent Malou (Zoe Stein), who gave up speech at the age of 7 when she discovered with horror the truth about what eating meat means. Her story is actually the saddest (Katharina’s suicide attempt notwithstanding), since she was given up at birth by her parents and then passed around from one family to the next. And yet, despite her unwillingness to vocalize, she projects an inner strength, and even happiness.
This is our eclectic foursome, and they mainly stick together through thick and thin. With no one to look out for their interests but themselves, they accept that challenges with come and embrace the adventure. Markert paces their hijinks well, only occasionally straining our credulity (particularly in its conclusion). If we’ve seen coming-of-age tales like this before, we haven’t seen them put together in quite so colorful a way. Cast and crew do their best to entertain, and for the most part, succeed admirably.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
