(Check out Chris Reed’s Two to One movie review. The film hits UK theaters Friday, May 2. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
Actress-turned-director Natja Brunckhorst (Alles in bester Ordnung) sets her second feature, Two to One, at the time of German Reunification following the collapse of Eastern European communism. The year is 1990 and many residents of East Germany (aka the DDR, or “Deutsche Demokratische Republik”) are a depressed lot, the myths they were taught about their country clearly false and the future under capitalism bleak to behold. In the new chapter ahead, they are sure to be the poor stepchildren of their wealthier siblings to the West.
Factory technician Robert (Max Riemelt, The Matrix Resurrections), married to Maren (Sandra Hüller, The Zone of Interest), is laid off right at the beginning, his place of work shutting down. How will they support themselves and their two kids without his salary, something they have never had to worry about before? And why has their best friend, Volker (Ronald Zehrfeld, Phoenix), decided to come home after years working abroad? Does he not understand what’s going on?
There’s actually a lot more happening among those three than even they realize at this point, but in the first part we focus on the unfolding comedy-adventure before us. Robert’s uncle works for the army, and when Robert and Volker spy trucks making large deliveries to the base, their curiosity leads them to investigate. It turns out the soon-to-be-dissolved East German government is stashing away currency ahead of reunification. Maren joins Volker and her husband to grab all they can, just for fun.
Except that it turns out there is a way to cash in on the treasure, courtesy of West German appliance salesmen trying to make a quick buck (or, rather, Deutsche Mark). Somehow, they have a method to take East German currency back across the border and earn a nice profit on the exchange. The problem is that all these opportunities end in three days.
I confess to understanding very little of the financial shenanigans, though I found the onscreen proceedings entertaining. The ensemble is strong (including far more than the aforementioned three) and they carry the narrative even as the transactional details bewilder. In any case, I got the general gist, if not the specificities.
Brunckhorst makes an intriguing script decision beyond the politico-economic arc, however, that almost feels like it belongs in a different movie. This concerns the romantic lives of our protagonists, the truth of which is only a mystery to them; the dramatic irony of it is evident from the start. Still, the story of people willing to live and let live applies to the trauma of 1990 more than we initially realize. The state may have failed its citizens, but humanity remains.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
Two to One; Natja Brunckhorst
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