"You & I" is a German movie from 2014, so 2 years old now and it was written and directed by Nils Bökamp. At this point, it is Bökamp's most known work I guess, but let me say that it does not exactly work in favor of the filmmaker here and I cannot really imagine his other stuff is even worse. It is probably because this film is relatively showy. The dialogues are a mix of English and German and there are admittedly some solid and beautiful places where the action takes place. But this is the only positive thing I can say. The big problem is the plot/story and sadly this is so frequently the case in gay-themed movies. If they define themselves and their sexuality via equality, then why is it they still cannot make films in a quantity that does justice to the genre. Yes there are gay-themed movies of strong quality, but it is sadly just the exception. The film defines itself through the main characters being gay, but there is nothing of quality in terms of writing or character development. Instead the filmmaker tries to make it a quality watch by including nude scenes and full frontal nudity. Yes you can say that there are strong films that are very slow, but even these have almost always an interesting story line. Not so this here. If anything, you can define it as a road movie, but the problem here is that road movies also live through the people that the protagonists meet during their journey, but these are almost non-existent here. The cast is minimal and the fact that the two lead actors are far from the level to elevate the very underwhelming script doesn't help matters at all. There is nothing uplifting to say about the film at all. It did not feel authentic to me or relevant and it simply did not make any difference at all with regards to anything. I cannot recommend checking it out at all. I was lucky it is a relatively short work (under 80 minutes and this already includes closing credits). Bökamp still has a long way to go in my opinion if he wants to get anywhere near Germany's most accomplished filmmakers. Judging from this one here, I cannot see it happen anytime soon.
Review of You & I
