Reclaim Your Brain - Hans Weingartner and Katharina Held follow up The ...

The film has a lot of fun erecting a small ‘l” liberal and culturati fantasy world in which intellectual chat shows suddenly attract a mass audience and networks shift Fassbinder films into prime time slots because the tabloid TV formulas no longer seem to be working. (ABC and SBS viewers will love it – have either network bought the rights yet?)

I doubt anyone will be surprised when I say that none of this is remotely plausible. The film’s saving grace is that it never takes itself too seriously. Well, almost never - there are two painfully ill-written moments that should have been scrubbed out at the very first script edit.

The other weak spot is the role of Elsa Sophie Gambard’s impossibly beautiful waif – initially bent on revenge against Bleibtreu’s character for allegedly causing her grandfather’s suicide. Her role is thinner than her figure, which must have taken some doing. Overall it’s a fun ride - a satire that gets dangerously close to farce yet pulls back from going over the brink. For audience members, a working knowledge of German would appear to be an advantage, as German speakers at the screening I attended in Sydney frequently laughed at lines and references that went straight over my head.