Review of Straight

This is "Straight", a German movie from 2007, so over a decade old now already, and the first and most known filmmaking effort by writer and director Nicolas Flessa. This is a film that runs for pretty much exactly one hour, which is highly unusual as running time here in Germany. Perhaps they took that duration because it was the filmmaker's first work. The cast is nothing too special. The three leads have their own stories, Beba Ebner has never acted in anything before or after that and for good reason, Florian Sonnefeld can still be seen in minor small screen projects these days and Eralp Uzun, the most known from the trio died an untimely death years ago from suicide. Supporting player Oktay Özdemir is still enjoying a pretty solid career as a whole. Now for the story, this is about a love triangle involving two men and a women and eventually it is all about finding out who wants to be the most with whom. Of course the males also need to overcome their distance as well, even if 2007 was already a year where society was really progressive here in Germany and you could lead a life as a proud gay man without consequence, although perhaps one character's ethnical background may make it a bit difficult. Overall, it was neither a particularly good or bad watch. At times I wondered if these characters really deserve their story to be put on screen. Having finished the movie now, I am still undecided. neither of the actors did make much of a difference to be honest and well the script is not doing them any great favors either. The weakest moments are probably monologues by the female central character that did feel fairly pretentious to be honest and not metaphoric, symbolic or impressive. Let alone deep. Just try-hard mostly in my opinion and that includes one where we see her nakes and hear about the men she met that year and also the very last thing you hear before the credits roll in. This should have been done without. The key story also has some weaknesses, such as how they meet each other completely independent from one another. It really felt like too much of a coincidence to me to be honest. As a whole, I never really developed any interest in the people this film is about and I am sure that was not just me. Anyway, so i was glad it was a fairly short film because on 2 or 3 occasions it had a tendency to drag already. My suggestion is to watch something else instead, even if the movie is not bad enough to be called a failure But mediocrity won't cut the cake either.