"Omamamia" or "Oma in Roma" is a German movie from 2012, so this one has its 5th anniversary this year. It runs for 100 minutes and was directed by Tomy Wigand The screenplay comes from 3 female writers and I won't list the names here, you can check the list for yourself. As for the cast, the main character is played by Marianne Sägebrecht while her daughter and granddaughter are portrayed by Annette Frier and Miriam Stein. The most known supporting performance is by Giancarlo Giannini (Oscar nominee), who plays Sägebrecht's character's potential love interest here and many may know him from Craig's Bond movies. But now back to this one here: I think it sounds somewhat promising in terms of the cast and story, but the result is extremely weak and disappointing. Sägebrecht may be good at playing likable characters, but honestly she has been playing the exact same character for decades now: older obese women who try to fix everything and are appreciated by (almost) everybody yet they depict her as flawed and almost sacrificing her own happiness for others.
And the comedy involving her is honestly extremely embarrassing. In the most random scene of the film she uses pepper spray against a con artist, but he quickly moves aside and so the pepper spray hits the Pope. Needless to say that for whatever reason, the Pope is apparently guarded by complete amateurs and yet Sägebrecht's character is released only hours later despite an incident that is reported on international television. Equally needless to say that her character of course ends up in love only a couple scenes later with the guy she wanted to use the pepper spray on. And if that isn't enough of change already, her daughter and granddaughter face struggles / potential breakups at the exact same time with their significant others. One thing is safe: This family does not have it with German men. Anyway, right when they probably realized that Stein's character added absolutely nothing to the entire movie, they included a cheating story about her boyfriend. The only purpose there was to show how strong and desirable Stein's character is and to show us how she deals with the situation like a confident woman would and how the boyfriend suffers because of how he hurt an amazing woman like Stein's character. It is all pretty cringeworthy and the worst about it all is that I personally think Stein is not just one of the most attractive, but also among the most talented actresses under 30 in Germany (/Austria) right now and she sure would have deserved a much better story-line. Needless to say that Sägebrecht's character also gets her moment with the cheating boyfriend.
Anyway, overall this film is all so expected, so stereotypical and its biggest problem is probably that it does not take any risks at all. This film is exactly what you could have expected to happen with the worst possible scenario. Frier and Stein have a good moment here at least, but as for Sägebrecht I am really sick of her over-and-over-the-same routine. The script also does not do them any favors with the generic retirement home part that has been done over and over again and just can't bring any emotion anymore, especially as it has been done better most of the time so far. The ending is another letdown as in the spirit of every schmaltzy small screen movie, even the biggest problems are fixed within the last 10 minutes out of nowhere, so that audiences are happy when leaving the theater. The easily-entertained at least. The ending feels even less authentic and realistic than the rest of the film and it takes quite something. The comment by Frier's character's husband about sex at the end feels like taken from a Christine Neubauer television schmaltz film. Enough said. This one here is a major disappointment and you need to stay far far away.
1 out of 2 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
