The Last Name

After the turbulent dinner and the disputes about the alleged first name of the child of Thomas (Florian David Fitz) and Anna (Janina Uhse), a family trip to Lanzarote should bring harmony again. But no sooner have Thomas and Anna as well as Stephan (Christoph Maria Herbst) and Elisabeth (Caroline Peters) arrived at the home of mother Dorothea (Iris Berben) and adopted son René (Justus von Dohnányi), who are happily living out their relationship here, than the next argument ensues. Dorothea and René reveal their desire to have children. And this brings tempers to the boil again...

After the success of his remake of the French play adaptation "Der Vorname" Sönke Wortmann invites in the successor "Der Nachname" again to a family reunion full of sometimes more, sometimes less amusing arguments. In the picturesque ambience of a finca on Lanzarote, there is again a lot of teasing and arguing. The good-humored ensemble can skillfully compensate for some script weaknesses and provides for many a really amusing moment. At the latest, however, when the moral of the story is not exactly subtly beaten around our ears at the end, it becomes clear that this comedy simply cannot keep up with its much more subtle predecessor.

Even if the first film was only almost a 1:1 adaptation of the French template and quite some own ideas in the script has built, reveals itself here now very clearly that there was no good template on which screenwriter Claudius Pläging could have been oriented. Thus, a few successful ideas from Part 1 are simply rehashed and filled with verbal battles that build on the conflicts between the individual characters established in "Der Vorname". This is amusing here and there, but remains mostly very flat, especially compared to the first film. The cleverness, which had quite particularly the French template, but largely also the German adaptation, is hardly felt here.

"Der Nachname" hardly differs from the other ensemble comedies that Sönke Wortmann has let loose on the audience in recent years. And the recipe for success simply wears thin over time. The oh-so-funny quarrels offer no surprises whatsoever, run according to the same pattern over and over again, and even among the ensemble - with the possible exception of Florian David Fitz - there is no one who is cast against the usual image for once. Christoph Maria Herbst is simply Christoph Maria Herbst again (even though it's always fun to watch him), Justus von Dohnányi has played similar roles dozens of times and Janina Uhse doesn't move a step out of her comfort zone either. All this is not really bad, but also offers no real reason to look at the film in the cinema.

Who likes ensemble comedies, in which there is constant arguing, there is a portion of slapstick and in which the obvious morality is again hammered so beautifully at the end, is exactly right here. However, if you're expecting the kind of subtle humor found in "Der Vorname", you might be disappointed in the end. Therefore, there is from me only with significant deductions still a: Worth seeing!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp