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I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I didn't expect too much from a modern adaptation of the famous novel of Thomas Mann, but this movie is simply a bad joke. What a kitsch, what a flatness! The original novel is told slowly with a lot of humor, wit and delicacy; the movie instead tries to squeeze the whole plot into two hours, which results in an unbearable speed of pictures, scenes, half-told stories and fast & colorful scenes without sense, simply not nice to see any more. It takes twenty minutes until some recognizable scene shows up. Half of the story is invented, which is of course disappointing when you know the novel.It could have been a good movie despite of all this, when you forget the novel and see it as a different story. But here, why on earth is the acting so poor? The actors talk, laugh, move and behave like an average 21th century German film-cast. No one talks the northern dialect and there is no sign of class differences in the language. They try, but they don't succeed. Just think of Gosford Park / Downtown Abbey, one of my favorites, where every detail just fits into the time picture.Most ridiculous scene: main characters who play the violin but can't. Total no-go. Moving around with a bow, holding the instrument without moving the fingers, while great melodies are heard, come on, you can do this in some cheap production or in a TV commercial, but not in a movie that wants to be taken serious.I tried to watch it anyway, just for enjoying some historic sites, but impossible. Stopped halfway. Boring, kitsch, annoying. Please excuse my poor English, I am still too upset... man... incredible.

The 2008 movie "Buddenbrooks", directed by Heinrich Breloer, is not the first time that this Thomas Mann novel was put on screen. Breloer made "Die Manns - Ein Jahrhundertroman" earlier, a film about the man who wrote "Buddenbrooks" and actually Armin Mueller-Stahl played Thomas Mann. Here he plays the patriarch of the Buddenbrooks family. Apart from him, this film has quite an interesting cast, some of Germany's finest actors and actresses: August Diehl, Jessica Schwarz, Alexander Fehling, Iris Berben, Justus von Dohnányi may all be known to those interested in German cinema. The film runs for roughly 2.5 hours and is very long, but I rarely felt that it dragged. Good job all in all. The first half hour is about Jessica Schwarz' character and her unhappy marriage with another merchant. She never loved him, but her father did not allow her to marry the one she actually loves as he lacked standing.Actually, this film worked best as a pure drama. There are some moments when it tries to include some humor, but none of these really work, like the greedy cake eater or laughing about one guy's wart. If anything funny worked, it was Sylvester Groth's weird character with his very unique smile. However, I would almost say his complete inclusion and appearance was also, in fact, dramatic. I was a bit surprised to see Jean Buddenbrook already die before the one-hour mark, but from that moment on it was all about the lives of the three children. We find out about the next (unhappy) relationships from everybody involved, how one son is very fragile while the other tries to lead the company just like his father did and how these two keep having conflicts for the rest of the film. One scene I found particularly interesting is when Diehl's character's girlfriend, a singer, is pregnant and the other Buddenbrook son becomes a father too, with a violinist. The reactions from the mother played by Iris Berben are so different. The other son was played by Mark Waschke, not a name to many, but he held his own very well against the more famous cast members. Berben, however, is actually forgettable. Very stereotypical character and performance with little to remember. Mueller-Stahl stays in the mind much more.In the end, there is a few more deaths and the downfall of the Buddenbrook empire is sealed, genetically and economically. As a whole, I enjoyed this movie. It is neither extremely outstanding nor bad, but I felt it was an interesting watch. One of the things I liked most was the makeup or maybe also casting work. Waschke looked a lot like Diehl in many scenes which makes sense as they were brothers and Schwarz' aging make-up is just as convincing as her similarity in looks compared to her movie mother Iris Berben.

impressive if it remains invitation to discover the novel. nice if you know the Thomas Mann novel. interesting if you search atmosphere . short - it is a beautiful fresco. not exactly the best adaptation but an useful exercise to understand a piece of German history. the acting is almost good. the ambition to create a credible image of legendary work has seductive parts but, at all, it is far to be more than a project with too much ambitions. and mistakes. not bad, it is only vision of a team, testimony about a fight against pages and images.the locomotive - Armin Mueller - Stahl is an inspired Johann Buddenbroock but is not enough.a fresco for a family evolution. but far to be a good adaptation.