Parky At the Pictures (6/6/2025)

(Reviews of Goebbels and the Fuhrer; Three Friends; and Falling into Place)

GOEBBELS AND THE FÜHRER.

One of the most potent scenes in Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (2004) involved Joseph and Magda Goebbels and their six children. This tragic incident is recalled again in Joachim Lang's Goebbels and the Führer, which not only examines the public duties of the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, but also his peccadilloes, such as the one recalled in Filip Renè's Lída Baarová biopic, The Devil's Mistress (2016).

An opening caption declares that it's necessarily risky to depict the film's events from the viewpoint of the perpetrators, as ripping off their masks gives them and their present-day proponents nowhere to hide. We plunge into March 1945, as Joseph Goebbels (Robert Stadlober) is viewing a rough cut for a newsreel to be released to mark the birthday of Adolf Hitler (Fritz Karl). He orders the removal of footage that shows the Führer trembling as he meets a detachment of teenage soldiers. Wife Magda (Franziska Weisz) is dismayed by how enfeebled Hitler looks and nods calmly when her husband declares that it's time to make the sacrifice they have agreed upon.

Burning documents so that no one can fathom his propaganda secrets, Goebbels boasts to an underling that he is unrivalled at his job and takes credit for winning the hearts and minds of the German people. He tells his staff that a colour film will be made 100 years from now eulogising their efforts. But he knows the Red Army is closing in and he escorts his family into the bunker before we see newsreel footage of six small corpses lying beside the charred remains of their parents.

Back in March 1938, Goebbels and Karl Hanke (Moritz Führmann) are planning the parade in Berlin to welcome Hitler home after confirming the Anschluss in Austria. Insisting that propaganda is an artform, Goebbels briefs the press to ensure that they carry the message he intends to convey and goes on a tour of inspection to check that leaflets ordering the people to throng the streets have been delivered and that the cameramen from Die Deutsche Wochenschau are positioned in the right places along the route.

Goebbels meets with leading members of the film world at a swanky club to remind them that propaganda has to be subtle in order to be effective. He flirts with actresses Paula Wessely and Lída Baarová (Katia Fellin) while explaining that they are part of an exercise in mass seduction. But he also reminds actor Joachim Gottschalk (Michael Glantschnig) that it is going to become increasingly difficult to overlook the fact that he has a Jewish wife and his words are toasted by director Veith Harlan (Christoph Franken).

Baarová has misgivings about a dalliance with Gobbels, as Magda would be furious and she has Hitler's ear. But he reassures her that he is the Third Reich's puppetmaster and that the success of the Berlin reception will only bolster his position. He also confides that he mistrusts such other members of the inner circle as Hermann Göring (Oliver Fleischer), Heinrich Himmler (Martin Bermoser), Joachim von Ribbentrop (Emanuel Fellmer), Otto Dietrich (Johannes Rhomberg), Alfred Rosenberg (Wolfram Rupperti), Albert Speer (Peter Windhofer), and Martin Bormann (Sebastian Thiers).

When Hitler decides he needs to wage war quickly because no one lives long in his family, he takes Goebbels and Magda into his confidence. He ticks her off for smoking, but she feels secure enough to suggest that Germany would have a lot to lose if there was another conflict. But Hitler has his legacy in mind and jokes that a man who now needs glasses to read can't afford to waste time.

At the premiere of Olympia (1938), Goebbels fetes Leni Riefenstahl (Helene Blechinger). But Magda notices his eye contact with Baarová and threatens to tell Hitler. He coldly informs her that he has taken a second wife and will not allow her to divorce him. But Von Ribbentrop suggests that his fixation with the Czech actress is clouding his judgement over the Sudetenland and delaying Hitler's war plan. He is keen to prevent a showdown with Prague because of his liaison. But Goebbels also fears war and claims the lack of a crowd at a military procession is down to the public mood.

The signing of the Munich Agreement on 30 September 1938 seems to give Goebbels the best of both worlds. But Hitler is furious because he knows Britain and France would have buckled if he had invaded. He blames Goebbels for taking his eye off the ball and summons him for a reprimand that is underlined by a threat that he will be disposed of if he betrays Magda again or the country in a time of war. Needing the public to be seen to be behind him, Hitler bans Baarová from making further films, but refuses Magda's demand for a divorce, as he needs the Reich's happiest family to help him sway thousands of others.

By 9 November, Hitler is ready to intensify his campaign against the Jews. With Goebbels's connivance, he uses the murder of diplomat Ernst vom Rath as a pretext for Kristallnacht and steps up preparations for a war against Poland. As Magda had been having an affair with Hanke, Hitler has him transferred into the Wehrmacht, while Goebbels forces her to renounce her Jewish stepfather, Richard Friedländer, who has been sent to a concentration camp. He also has to shift press attention away from attacking Bolshevism, as Hitler has negotiated a non-aggression pact with Moscow that will see Eastern Europe divided between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Reassured that the people will stand behind him, Hitler invades Poland on 1 September 1939 and Goebbels is required to justify the strike, but also extol the virtues of blitzkrieg, as Neville Chamberlain and Édouard Daladier consider their positions. However, he is wary of making overtly National Socialist films and is criticised by Himmler and others for allowing the film industry to duck its duty. Hitler himself defends Riefenstahl for bailing out on her film about the Polish campaign, but he expects Goebbels to produce some hard-hitting Party propaganda, as well as the patriotic escapism he claims to prefer because its message insinuates rather than indoctrinates.

Aware of the need to regain control of the narrative, Goebbels orders Harlan to make Jew Suss, even though he is struggling to cast star names because they want nothing to do with such a virulently anti-Semitic tract. Goebbels reminds Harlan that he was permitted to marry Swedish actress Kristina Söderbaum and owes his status to the Führer. He also vows to do something about Meta Gottschalk, who is Jewish. But, for the moment, he has to supervise Fritz Hippler (Sascha Göpel) in the making of The Eternal Jew, a documentary designed to educate the public in advance of the Holocaust to come.

Magda is jealous when Eva Braun (Raphaela Möst) is allowed to shoot home movies on 6 July 1940, as Hitler greets the crowds after the capitulation of France. But he has no intention of resting on his laurels. When he calls to congratulate Magda on the birth of her latest child, he breaks the news about the forthcoming attack on the USSR, which poses another propaganda challenge for Goebbels, who has spent two years assuaging fears about the Red Menace. He is worried about the prospect of a war on two fronts, but Hitler assures him that victory will be swift and they plan the music to be played on the newsreel announcing the defeat of Joseph Stalin.

Operation Barbarossa begins on 22 June 1941 and Hitler is jubilant, as Goebbels justifies the attack by claiming that Moscow and London were in cahoots to entrap the Reich. Dietich briefs the foreign press that the campaign is a breeze and Goebbels is livid because he knows he has to sell setbacks to the volk without it looking like Hitler's fault. The decision is taken to blame the Jews and yellow stars are made compulsory for those living in the state and its satellites. This gives the public a visible enemy and Hitler is delighted with the initiative, as he claims the eradication of European Jewry was always one of his main intentions. Himmler's reports about the pleasure that his Gestapo and SS men take in killing Jews also goes down well, as does the promise of a new gas method of speeding up the eradications.

When Gottschalk gasses himself and his wife and son, Goebbels rails at his cowardice. He had just been watching a film of his own children praising his parenting skills and he tells Heinz Rühmann (Raphael Nicholas) to issue a news blackout, as several cinema colleagues have announced their intention to attend Gottschalk's funeral. With things going badly on the Eastern Front, Goebbels orders a shift to 80% pure entertainment films, while the newsreel will become more punchy. Hippler is asked to use models to show the Wehrmacht on the move and in good spirits. Faked recordings are even used for a Christmas rendition of `Silent Night' with voices supposedly coming from war zones across the continent.

But the battle to stay upbeat is becoming increasingly difficult, as even Hitler is aware that things are going badly - although he chooses to blame the Italians, Romanians, and Hungarians who had let him down. He also worries that the yellow stars are making people more compassionate towards the Jews. When Stalingrad is relieved, Goebbels wants to tell the truth about the war effort, but Hitler prefers to accuse others of sabotaging his strategy. In an attempt to find more recruits, Goebbels aims films at younger men to make duty seem noble and exciting.

On 3 February 1943, Goebbels gives a rousing speech at the Sports Palace challenging citizens to commit to Total War. Hitler praises him for re-focussing the mood after the setbacks in the East. But Goebbels is not alone in manoeuvring himself into position to be Hitler's No.2, as Himmler makes his own bid in a series of speeches outlining the necessity and the success of the Final Solution to the Jewish problem. The Wochenschau shows executions, but Hitler refuses to speak to his people, leaving Goebbels during one keynote to halt halfway through the word `extermination' and replace it with `exclusion' - thus sewing the seed for what was to come.

As Allied bombers strike against German cities, Goebbels pleads with the Führer to lead from the front. But he refuses to address the situation and instead backs Kolberg, a film about a German victory against the odds in the Napoleonic era that is entrusted to Harlan to raise spirits and, by having thousands of military extras, offer an example of victory through resistance. Goebbels stands in for Hitler in visiting the bombsites and announces plans to train Hitler Youth cadets for active combat. He also vows to unleash Mission B units on Berlin to punish those spreading defeatist talk.

On 22 July 1944, Hitler survives an assassination attempt and Goebbels implicates one of his chief critics, Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff (Till Firit). A shaken Führer is persuaded that his survival confirms his destiny to lead the nation to victory. He promotes Goebbels to Minister for Total War and, when he visits the family home, the children are paraded and affectionately greeted. He agrees to speak on the radio, as Goebbels uses dialogue from Kolberg to encourage the notion that death in the rubble is preferable to surrender. Driving through the rubble, he despairs of the lack of fight among the people in the face of the rapacious Red Army. He orders subordinates to fake newsreel footage showing the right spirit, but also decides to withhold Kolberg, as its triumphalism no longer seems suitable.

When they meet in the bunker on 20 April 1945, Hitler tells Goebbels that the war is lost because his generals have betrayed him. He admires his minister's resolve stand firm, but claims he will not let himself be captured alive. Moreover, he insists he will not shed a tear for the German people. Fetching his children, Goebbels moves into the bunker and reminds Magda in the car that they are in too deep to attempt an escape and hope to have a new life incognito.

Closing captions affirm Hitler and Eva Braun's marriage and death on 30 April. They also reveal that Goebbels was named his successor in the Führer's will and we see him supervising the burning of the bodies in the bunker courtyard. The next day, Magda poisons her children before dying with her husband. A coda features survivor Margot Friedländer (who died at the age of 103 on 9 May) lamenting that so many forgot that all human beings are equal and lent their hands to such a monstrous crime. Primo Levi has the last word, warning that if it happened once, it could happen again - but this must never be allowed to happen.

Given the spread of right-wing populism around the world, this simple, but heartfelt message has never seemed to poignant or pertinent. Joachim Lang is to be credited for seeking to show in an age of fake news and social media manipulation, how easily people can be misled by cunning propaganda that panders to their basest instincts and worst fears. For this reason along, this film deserves to be widely seen - even though it is never quite as devastating as it might have been.

Part of the problem lies in the feature format, as Lang is only able to flag key events and significant ideas rather than examine them in any detail. As a consequence, this feels more like a checklist than a litany of doom. Moreover, by restricting its perspective to Goebbels and the inner sanctum, there is little sense of the dread that Nazi policies generated among the German people. Similarly, there's no room to examine the enthusiasm (or lack thereof) with which Hitler's actions were greeted, especially after the tide started to turn and Germany became the target of nightly air raids. Something along the lines of Marvin J. Chomsky's adaptation of Albert Speer's memoir, Inside the Third Reich (1982), might have enabled Lang to devote more time to fascinating subplots like the Gottschalk tragedy, which inspire Kurt Maetzig's DEFA drama, Marriage in the Shadows (1947).

The narrow focus also makes it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of Goebbels's propaganda, as we never see audiences reacting to it in cinemas or learn enough about the complicity of those who wrote, directed, and enacted the more pernicious items, as opposed to the more anodyne entertainment that dominated production during the entire Nazi period, as Rüdiger Suchsland explained in his excellent documentary, Hitler's Hollywood (2017).

With editor Rainer Nigrelli deftly inserting newsreel clips into the chronicle, it quickly becomes apparent that Robert Stadlober isn't a particularly good match for Goebbels. He still does a fine job of conveying his fiendish intellect and his debased cultural refinement. But the Baarová episode falls rather flat, while the nature of Goebbels's before and after relationship with Magda might have been more scrutinised. She is well played by Franziska Weisz, while Fritz Karl's Hitler is sufficiently differentiated from Bruno Ganz's seminal portrayal in Downfall. But the rest of the Reich hierarchy are sketchily delineated, which dissipates the sense of rivalry that existed between those competing for Hitler's approval.

Pierre Pfundt's production design, Katarina Bielikova's costumes, and Klaus Fuxjäger's cinematography are all first rate. Lang also knows his stuff, as he co-wrote Horst Königstein's tele-documentary about Veit Harlan, Jud Süß - Ein Film als Verbrechen? (2001), and directed George (2013), a TV-movie about Heinrich George, the star of Kolberg. Perhaps the unofficial triptych could be released on disc in the UK, while Lang maybe works on a remake of Marriage in the Shadows?

THREE FRIENDS.

Emmanuel Mouret is rather taken for granted. He's managed a film every two years since debuting with Laissons Lucie faire! in 2000 and has never ceased to produce literate studies of bourgeois life that tackle adult issues with wit and insight. It's fashionable to dismiss him as the French Woody Allen or a Ligue Deux Éric Rohmer and point out that his pictures - with the exception of the period piece, Lady J. (2018) - are much of a muchness. But British cinema should be green with envy that it doesn't have an auteur capable of producing a gem like Love Affair(s) (2020), which amassed 13 César nominations.

Distributors have often shied away from Mouret, with the result that too few of Vénus and Fleur (2004), Change of Address (2006), Shall We Kiss? (2007), Please, Please Me (2009), The Art of Love (2011), Another Life (2013), Caprice (2015), and Diary of a Fleeting Affair (2022) have reached UK screens. Thankfully, Ciné Lumière has had the good sense to present Three Friends, the latest manifestation of Mouret's ability to tell a well-observed story without moralising or hectoring that makes viewers think and feel.

Narrating with the benefit of a year's hindsight, Lyon teacher Victor Harzouian (Vincent Macaigne) tries to pinpoint the precise moment his tale begins. He decides it's when English teacher partner, Joan Belair (India Hair), confides in best friend, Alice (Camille Cottin), that she's no longer in love. Over coffee and beer, Alice explains that love is rarely synchronised and that she chose husband Éric (Grégoire Ludig) because she had found passionate romance to be too unpredictable. Instead, she's content with his devotion and her own brand of fond affection - although she doesn't know that her spouse is the mysterious Mister X, who keeps distracting their mutual friend, Rebecca Maillard (Sara Forestier).

After an awkward evening out with Alice and Éric, Joan tells Victor she's not in love with him and he cajoles her into accepting the various reasons he proposes ranging from motherhood to work pressure and insomnia. He also promises to be less adoring so she doesn't feel so uncomfortable, although she reassures him that he's done nothing wrong and deserves better.

Éric trips over the seats going to meet Rebecca at a screening of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious (1946). When he comes to her art studio the next day, he is appalled to learn she has signed up to a dating app and has been on a date with someone she barely recognised from his online photo. He asks if she's serious about finding a man and she jokes she is being patient because he can't bring himself to leave Alice. During a museum visit, Alice and Rebecca discuss relationships based on getting along, but Joan insists there's no point being with someone unless there's an irrational spark of love.

Victor tries to coax Joan into moving house so they can start again. But her lack of enthusiasm dismays him and he demands to know whether they are over or not. She hesitates, but he takes Joan's silence as her answer and is crushed, while she feels bad for hurting him. He gets drunk and crashes his car and Joan only finds out he's dead when the police come to the school and Victor laments in voiceover that he had been such an idiot and was in no position to tell Joan how sorry he was.

The tragedy also prevents Éric from telling Alice about Rebecca. Indeed, it has lots of knock-on effects, as Joan starts spending more time with daughter Nina (Louise Vallas), even going to the local rep cinema she likes to watch Buster Keaton films. Alice and Rebecca feel dull while watching Joan throw herself into activities, not knowing she was trying to dull the guilt she felt at receiving condolences to which she didn't feel entitled.

Seeking to spice up her life, Alice calls the phone number she keeps seeing in a dream and gets chatting to famous artist, Stéphane Leroi (Eric Caravaca). This becomes a habit and Alice climbs into bed to kiss Éric goodnight after he has just texted Rebecca. She has turned down a job in Dijon to stay close to him, while Joan becomes friendly with Victor's replacement at school, Thomas Duval (Damien Bonnard). He has moved in upstairs and his daughter, Héloïse (Hanaé Alves), befriends Nina. Strolling in the park, he tells Joan to stop blaming herself for Victor's death, as he was the one who chose to drink and drive in response to them breaking up. Needing to forgive herself, Joan is encouraged by his kindness and they take to late-night phone chats.

When he suggests a weekend at a friend's petting farm, Joan has doubts. But Alice and Rebecca urge her to see how she feels about Thomas with no pressure - with the twist being that they are also off for the weekend, with Rebecca being Alice's alibi for a tryst with Stéphane that allows her to have Éric to herself. However, it also necessitates her telling her lover that his wife is meeting a man she's been chatting with and Éric isn't sure how he feels about the situation, even though he's cheating on his wife with her best friend.

For the first day of their trip, Éric keeps fretting about Alice and Rebecca has to reassure him that she's only doing what he is doing and that he can't blame her. At the farm, Joan is taken aback when Thomas kisses her and she has to tell him she's not ready for romance. He's understanding and they agree to stay friends because the girls have grown so close.

On saying goodbye back in Lyon, Rebecca is hurt when Éric thanks her for a nice weekend, as it makes everything seem so formal. However, when she meets up with Alice, she's appalled to hear that she had picked up Éric's phone when Alice had called and they had not recognised each other's voices. She tries to kid Alice along that he would never cheat, but she is suspicious and feels betrayed, even though she had slept with Stéphane.

Despite their daughters pleading with them to marry so they can become sisters, Joan and Thomas remain platonic. Alice feels embarrassed because Stéphane keeps sending her original paintings and she dare not hang them in case Éric notices. She admits to feeling ambivalent about love and is reluctant to lose the cosy lifestyle she has with a husband who doesn't cling. As she had hoped the affair would break the marriage, Rebecca is disappointed, but can't let it show. She also has to resist complaining when Éric stays away because he has been so nettled by Alice's infidelity.

At a gallery show where Rebecca has a painting, Joan meets Thomas's music teacher friend, Martin (Mathieu Metral). He is new to Lyon and Joan enjoys showing him around. She is also touched by a piece of music he has composed and feels a throb of desire when she closes the door at the end of their day out. Waking in the night, she sees Victor watching her sleep. He promises that he is fine with her seeing other men and she asks him for a hug because she still feels such guilt and often thinks of him. He starts to fade as soon as they touch, but Joan feels better for having made her peace with him. So much so that she kisses Martin when they go to view his new flat. But he feels bad when he learns that Thomas is also smitten with her.

Meanwhile, Alice breaks up with Stéphane because she has fallen in love with Éric for the first time. She confides in Rebecca, who keeps her composure and hopes they can be happy - even fibbing that Éric had mentioned having kids together. Rebecca arranges a rendezvous to end things with Éric and lies again by insisting she's met someone new. He hugs her in love and gratitude, but she chides him for being an odd man.

While Alice and Éric fall in lust, Rebecca returns the paintings to Stéphane. They hit it off and she feels instantly close to him. But he drives her to the station next morning as if nothing had happened. Joan is also unhappy, as Martin has not been in touch since they first kissed. She confides in Thomas, who is heartbroken and fails to show up for school, just as Victor had done. After running home, Joan is relieved to find he had overslept and has hopes things will work out with Martin because Thomas thinks he had backed off because of their friendship. However, he had used this as an excuse because he didn't feel as enamoured as Joan and she cries in the corridor at school after listening to his voicemail. Still upset later than night, she fails to see Victor when he comes to visit and he has to sit in silence when Nina comes in to tell her mother about her first crush at school.

Rebecca applies for a publishing job and runs into Antonin (Hugues Perrot), her disastrous dating app meet. She tries to back off, but he likes her work and she is bubbling over with excitement when she attends a party at Alice and Éric's. Joan is also there and tells Alice that she is ready to settle into an affection-based liaison with Thomas. However, she is introduced to Léo (Louis Séguin), who works at Éric's radio station and is immediately infatuated. Once again, she fails to notice poor old Victor, who intuitively knows that this is the one and he fades out, as he slowly walks away.

Many critics have dubbed this an archetypal Gallic treatise on the tricky business of falling and staying in love. They are all spot on. But they are wrong to dismiss it with a `plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose' kind of shrug, as there is much more to this witty and poignant drama than a spot of paradigmatic French philandering.

Opening with a guided tour of places in which key scenes will take place, Vincent Macaigne's narration sets the tone of wry melancholy that permeates events in the lives of three very different women. India Hair's Joan can't trust herself to deal with feelings and her external passivity contrasts with the effusiveness of her over-demonstrative partner. While he protests too much, Camille Cottin's Alice and Grégoire Ludig's Éric's hide their ennui behind a pragmatic veneer of pet names and chaste goodnight kisses. Yet, even when they cheat on each other, they do so half-heartedly because rubbing along is less taxing than sustaining passion. By contrast, the excellent Sara Forestier's Rebecca wears her heart on her sleeve, but has to keep covering it up because her beau is her best friend's husband.

None of the men are particularly exciting, even the new ones who drift in and out of the trio's lives offering various degrees of temptation, intoxication, and security. But that's where Mouret and Carmen Leroi's screenplay is so astute, as most people settle for low-fuss compatibility because grand amours are few and far between and highly volatile. The characters might be sketchily limned, but they do a lot of erudite talking, as they were wont to do in Allen and Rohmer's best pictures. Yet they were not ticked off for lacking visual innovation as regularly as Mouret is, which is frustrating, as Laurent Desmet's functional camerawork allows the director to maintain his focus on both the performances of his estimable ensemble and the evocative locations.

Martial Salomon's editing is also unobtrusively precise, while David Faivre's production design and Bénédicte Mouret's costumes are unshowily effective. Flecked with classical favourites, Benjamin Esdraffo's score is a bit more prosaic. But it hits the right tone during the more sombre moments, as Mouret reminds us that loving someone and being loved in return is more difficult than classic literature, old movies, and popular culture would have us believe.

FALLING INTO PLACE.

Having established herself in front of the camera in features like Yasemin ªamdereli's film Almanya - Welcome to Germany (2011) and Pola Beck's Breaking Horizons (2012), as well as the hit mini-series, Unbroken (2021), German actress Aylin Tezel turned her hand to writing and directing. Following the short, Phoenix (2020), she made her feature bow with Falling into Place (2023), which finds its way on to UK screens this week.

Theatre set designer Kira (Aylin Tezel) has travelled to Skye in the hope of getting over broken relationship. In the pub, she catches the eye of Ian (Chris Fulton), who is home to see his family. At closing time, he smokes against a wall, while she fights off an over-enthusiastic admirer and they joke about attraction before they challenge each other to a race along the lamplit street.

After hopping and dancing between giggles, Kira pees behind a dumpster while Ian puts his fingers in his ears. Ian refuses her suggestion of a goodbye dance and they watch dawn rise over the water. As they stroll along, they discuss the risk involved in falling in love because relationships are so difficult. He suggests they have sex, but she backs away from his attempted kiss and he chases her up a hill. Lying in the grass, they ponder the mystery of attraction and what they expect from a partner.

Over coffee, he uses a pen to extend her lifeline and adds a podgy child to her palm. But Kira is taken aback when Ian casually mentions a girlfriend and he acts cool in making a hasty retreat after sensing her clamming up. However, he beckons her with a hand round the café door and she joins him on the bus to the family home. His mother (Louise Allen) is cross with him for being late with a prescription for his father (Michael Carter), and Ian bolts after a cursory greeting. He takes Kira to meet his pal and they are dancing on the table to Cutting Crew's `Died in Your Arms Tonight' when Ian gets a call from his mother saying that his sister, Annie (Anna Russell-Martin), has tried to commit suicide again.

Furious with his parents that the car won't start, they take the bus to the hospital. Kira watches Ian on tenterhooks and rushes after him when he can't face seeing his sister. He goes back to her hotel room and they sleep on top of the bed fully clothed. During the night, Kira rolls into a spooning position and her fingers roam across his back. While he turns to face her, they simply lie together and Kira is disappointed to wake next morning to find herself alone.

Back in London, Kira stays with lesbians Jacky (Layo-Christina Akinlude) and Euna (Kathryn Howden) and resists their efforts to pep talk her and set her up with men. She feels low after bumping into her three-year actor ex, Aidan (Rory Fleck Byrne), and keeps thinking of her platonic night with Ian. He is in a perpetual bad mood with his girlfriend, Emily (Alexandra Dowling), and blames her when a music PR turns down his songs for lacking personality. He also snaps at her for being a daddy's girl and for feigning interest in his family when she knows he doesn't want to talk about them. But he breaks down after a day in the pub and sobs while describing how Annie has had problems since she was 17 and he has no idea what to do to help her.

Kira persuades theatre director Lewis (Samuel Anderson) to let her design his next show and she is excited. But she can't stop thinking about Ian and produces sketches of him. He's also confused because she asked him questions that took him out of his comfort zone. However, he has no idea where to find her and pours his angst into music he writes after hours on the piano of the pub where he is working. Urged by Emily during another row, he visits Annie and she informs him he looks old. When he tries to ask her some questions about how she's feeling, she clams up.

Hoping Aidan will take her back, Kira calls at his flat. But he has moved on and berates her for trying to change herself to please him when she needs to be concentrating on her own mental health. Hurt by his frankness, she keeps to herself and even falls behind with her designs. But Lewis is determined to have her on board and even introduces her to gallery owner Judy (Olwen Fouéré), who is very taken by her drawings of Ian.

Ian has returned home after breaking up with Emily and helps his mother care for his father. He also visits Annie and is pleased to hear that she is feeling more positive and hopes to have conquered some of her demons. Heading to London, Ian starts work as an accompanist to a dance troupe. Passing Judy's gallery, he sees a white grand piano and can't resist playing, only to see pictures of himself adorning the walls. She invites him to the opening, where Kira is feeling good about herself after handling the news that Aidan has become a father.

She bumps into Ian while looking for a vase for some flowers and he's amused she is holding a mould shaped like a woman's pelvic region. Kira jokes it's a little dry and they agree to talk later. As the band is playing `Can't Help Falling in Love', she's reluctant to dance, especially when he calls it a goodbye dance. But she clings closely to him and runs after him when he leaves because she doesn't want to lose him twice. They kiss and decide to go for a walk, which starts with another race along the street - this time in milky sunshine.

Borrowings from Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise (1995) are accompanied by echoes of John Carney's Once (2007) in this earnest, but rarely convincing drama. Neither character is particularly empathetic, but Ian is markedly more resistible than Kira. Tetchy towards those trying to help her, she mopes in self-pity. But he is aggressively unpleasant to everyone from his parents to his girlfriend and it's a shame that Kira doesn't get to see any of this side of his personality while falling in love with a idealised dream.

As is Three Friends, the milieux in which the pair operate is pretentiously rarified. Why are the Kiras and Ians of this world always budding creatives on the cusp of discovery rather than optician's assistants or binmen? And why do they have to talk in pseudo-lyrical riddles instead of stating what's on their minds in plain language?

Despite the infuriating nature of the lovers and the excruciating contrivance of their situation, Tezel and Fulton perform admirably. For all their assumed emotional baggage, neither has much to go on in terms of backstory depth, with the vulnerable Kira's distant and recent past being completely withheld, while the musical aspirations that brought Ian from Skye to London are of no interest to the writer-director whatsoever. It's this archness that makes the pair so hard to like, although they are surrounded by stick figures who seem to exist solely to tick socio-cultural quota boxes.

Julian Krubasik's Skyescapes are effective enough. But there's no real reason why Ian should hail from the Inner Hebrides, as the region has no impact upon his personality or his music, while the unique nature of the island community is wholly ignored in relation to his antipathy towards his parents and his sister's illness. Kira is seemingly only German because of Tezel's accent, as her homeland has no bearing on the character besides a stereotypical crack about her lacking a sense of humour (which could be said of the film itself). We're not told how she fetched up in London, but the capital is largely anonymous apart from a couple of shots of Underground walkways. Compare this with Emmanual Mouret's use of Lyon in Three Friends.

Granted that was his 11th feature. but grounding the action in a sense of place is so important, especially when the characters are so rootless and schematic. As it is, this feels like a workshop piece that is utterly detached from real life. No doubt, Tezel will implement any lessons learned in her sophomore feature, as her directorial talent is readily evident in her use of the capital's anonymous interiors and the poignancy she achieves in the fleeting moment of intimacy in a Scottish hotel bedroom. But an involving story needs much more than intense sincerity.