Film Review: "Isi & Ossi" (2020).

From the writer/director of Four Hands comes Issi & Ossi. This German romantic comedy film directed and written by Oliver Kienle. A billionaire's daughter fakes a relationship with a cash-strapped boxer in order to coerce her parents into letting her pursue her culinary dreams.

By late April 2019, Lisa Vicari, Dennis Mojen, Walid Al-Atiyat, Christina Hecke, Ernst Stötzner, Lisa Hagmeister, Hans-Jochen Wagner, André Eisermann, Zoë Straub, and Pegah Ferydoni. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in early June. Filming took place in Berlin; Heidelberg and Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

The film stars Vicari, Mojen, Al-Atiyat, Hecke, Stötzner, Hagmeister, Wagner, Eisermann, Straub, and Ferydoni. Whatever the true reality, Vicari makes us believe in the reality of Isabelle the vaguely sad young woman who thrusted into a situation and has to find a way to escape it. Exuding a rough-around-the-edges charm that's hard to resist, Mojen captivates the audience immediately as the film's poor male lead. Vicari and Mojen make the romantic yearning palatable and moving in each scene they're in, and the result is both funny and poignant. There are plenty of incidental pleasures; some of the supporting players, especially Stötzner as Oscar's rambunctious former jailbird grandfather and Straub as Isabelle's best friend, threaten to steal the picture.

It's a crowd-pleaser, all right (so were public hangings, once), but with all the emotional resonance of a tap on the knee with a rubber hammer. Watching the wealthy aspiring chef from Heidelberg and poor aspiring boxer from Mannheim connect onscreen is the kind of thing that light romantic comedies are for. Lately, romance comedies have expanded in running time, doubtless to compensate for their shrinkage in charm, and this is no exception -- it's way too long for something far too slight. It's funny, sympathetic, mostly smart, and it boasts a likable cast of characters led by two performers who have star power and know how to use it. Vicari flashes her charming smile, Mojen does his patented dithering tough guy fellow bit and they're just as cute as two buttons in this winning romantic comedy. One reason the film succeeds is that it so deftly combines elements from sappy U.S. romantic comedies and the much more caustic German satires. And when that experiment works here, it works well. Every time it starts to get really good, every time it reaches a romantic or emotional high, the soundtrack chimes in and ruins the scene with invariably intrusively and often downright awful songs. A supremely satisfying confection - a German romantic comedy of the sort that ends with you standing outside the theatre with a dopey grin on your face. There's not much substance to "Priceless," but what is there is effortlessly crafted and entertaining, and the locales in Heidelberg and Mannheim are just spectacular. Sometimes a trifling comedy can seem infinitely better when it comes packaged in a foreign language, especially German. Kienle's film, though, seems like the sort of thing that would be amusing in any tongue.

Simon says Issi & Ossi receives: