Americans have quested for a long while for the "Great American Novel"; the French have battled for an atom bomb that produces more than a mere farting noise and which won't expose them to the ridicule of the natives; the British have long since tried to create a beer that doesn't evoke connotations of warm urine. On a similar ticket, Germans have been searching high and low for the fabled "Decent German Comedy", the storied holy grail of German culture and proof that the "master race" can jape and jest with the best. Whereas the arrival of "Alles auf Zucker!" doesn't herald the "Endsieg" in that department yet, it at least manages to pass the touchstone test of being "somewhat more preferable to a unanesthetized root canal treatment" and even to be oftentimes genuinely amusing. It manages to shine through world-class-heavyweight acting (especially by Hannelore Elsner and the hitherto-unknown-to-me Henry Hübchen), fast direction and camera-work and an insolent script. And besides, it is a movie about German Jews that isn't a moralistic tear-jerker, so director Dani Levy really scores a hattrick here.
***Slight Spoilers Ahoy!*** But there is also a slew of undeniable downsides: first of, the entire plot comes across as somewhat construed, scripted and make-believe, although this is somewhat compensated for by the movie's enormous speed; but still you can't escape the impression that the makers borrowed heavily from Woody Allen, et al. However I was genuinely disgusted by the fact that the four cousins are "romantically linked", as if this quasi-incest would constitute only a slight and ultimately hilarious misdemeanour (there even is a scene which shows two of the cousins snogging with a conservative rabbi in attendance, which really pushes the envelope of good taste and credibility). Also the affair between Jana and Jakob ten years ago consitutes a plot-hole, since the entire movie is based on the fact that the two brothers Jacky and Samuel haven't been in touch since the erection of the "Mauer". And finally I had the impression that the movie sells out its laudably knuckle-hard humour for a sappy ending when Jacky states from the off that he now reads the Torah and attends the synagogue, although this transformation from fast-mouthed atheist to zealot comes entirely out of nowhere.
In brief, not a perfect but rather a surprisingly good movie.
***Slight Spoilers Ahoy!*** But there is also a slew of undeniable downsides: first of, the entire plot comes across as somewhat construed, scripted and make-believe, although this is somewhat compensated for by the movie's enormous speed; but still you can't escape the impression that the makers borrowed heavily from Woody Allen, et al. However I was genuinely disgusted by the fact that the four cousins are "romantically linked", as if this quasi-incest would constitute only a slight and ultimately hilarious misdemeanour (there even is a scene which shows two of the cousins snogging with a conservative rabbi in attendance, which really pushes the envelope of good taste and credibility). Also the affair between Jana and Jakob ten years ago consitutes a plot-hole, since the entire movie is based on the fact that the two brothers Jacky and Samuel haven't been in touch since the erection of the "Mauer". And finally I had the impression that the movie sells out its laudably knuckle-hard humour for a sappy ending when Jacky states from the off that he now reads the Torah and attends the synagogue, although this transformation from fast-mouthed atheist to zealot comes entirely out of nowhere.
In brief, not a perfect but rather a surprisingly good movie.