If Sterben (Matthias Glasner, 2024) was Lars Eidinger’s Tár (Todd Field, 2022) — a long and forbidding story of a conductor that moved with a great sense of rhythm and inevitability — then Das Licht (Tom Tykwer, 2025) is his Disclaimer (Alfonso Cuarón, 2024), an overlong, poorly written and flabby follow up that shows once again how even the best actors in the world can’t save godawful material.
For those who thought that the scribbly Hologram for a King (2016) was too tightly-structured, now comes Tom Tykwer’s next project, a 162-minute state-of-the-nation address that plumbs new depths of cringeworthy cinema.
The Berlinale Opening Special Gala often leans towards cringy ensemble films, with She Came to Me (Rebecca Miller, 2023) and The Kindness of Strangers (Lone Scherfig, 2019) two particularly lame standouts in recent years. But Tykwer finds a way to outdo them both, locating a particularly German strain of well-meaning sentiment that slowly tips over into an outright, hands-over-your-eyes-I-can’t-believe-what-I’m-watching-please-make-it-stop experience.
The aforementioned Eidinger stars as Tim, a marketing exec with a truly cynical ability to launder the reputation of evil corporations under woke speak. He’s in a sexless marriage with wife Milena (Nicolette Krebitz), who thanklessly works for an NGO trying to raise money for a theatre in Nairobi.
In an opening montage that lasts the better part of half an hour — making me worry we were in for one of those hyperlink stories — their story is contrasted with the two kids: Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer), k-holing in a Berlin club with her little Gen Z party death cult; and Jon (Julius Gause), holed up in his room playing some futuristic version of ultimate frisbee on his VR machine. While all four characters are so wrapped up in their inner lives, their cleaner lies dead of a stroke on the floor, undiscovered until the following day. The implication is clear: the world goes to shit while we focus only on ourselves.
Enter Syrian refugee Farrah (Tala Al-Deen) as their new Mary Poppins. She is the Magical Negro trope in its purest form, a person of colour whose trauma and orientalised otherness makes her uniquely able to understand each member of this family and get them to reconnect with each other once again.
Her method centres around an odd form of light therapy that helps people find their inner souls. It’s a central mystical element in a film filled to the brim with weird moments, including (but not limited to): awkward musical montages; random Lars Eidinger full-frontal scenes; shoehorned-in feminist and environmental messages; animated sequences; a psychedelic “Ray of Light” (Madonna, 1998) homage; the worst take on “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Queen, 1975) I’ve ever heard; and even children randomly flying over canals. It might have been somewhat entertaining with a tighter edit, but scenes never get started, ending just as we might feel something, giving the entire endeavour a feeling of immense weightlessness.
But there is something sinister underneath all the cringe! Should we really be watching Arabs suffer so white Germans can learn how to talk to each other? I couldn’t help but think of the election, which coincides with the last day of this increasingly politically toothless festival. Germans have a choice to vote for a party that could help Syrians, but are more than likely going to vote in the increasingly racist CDU (and/or the Nazis in the AfD). In the face of paused asylum applications and plans across Europe to send them back in the light of Assad’s fall, Syrians don’t need positive sentiments and wishy-washy huggy-huggy magical moments; they need Germans to genuinely stand up for their rights. In this respect, its hard to read Das Licht as anything other than deeply misguided, cynical and offensive.
If these anti immigration parties get in, people are going to die. Hardly the time for Lars Eidinger to get his penis out and kvetch about his sex life.
Redmond is the editor-in-chief of Journey Into Cinema.