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Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely amazing

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

I saw the film at the Berlin Film Festival and I haven't forgotten it since then. I don't want to give spoilers so in my review I am focusing on my experience and artistic details: First of all, the main actor Sebastian Hülk is a huge discovery. He is known from his smaller roles in films such as The White Ribbon (2009) and Inglourious Basterds (2009), and in this film he is playing the lead for the first time in his career. And it is incredible how - in a subtle style of acting - he achieves that the audience can follow him emotionally from one side to the other: from 'good' to 'evil', from 'insecure' to 'secure' etc. Each scene seems to open a new perspective on the mysterious, sexy and thrilling story about social ties, fears, danger and the spiritual abyss that lurks under a bourgeois surface. Director Asli Özge, who is a Turkish female, living in Berlin Germany since quite a while, has delivered her 3rd film, for the 1st time in German language though. All Of A Sudden is a surprisingly great achievement in filmmaking, feeling authentic with every breath, yet very cinematic with rich imagery and a tight narration, that is tackling many layers, and never losing its grip. I also would like to mention the beautiful cinematography and finely tuned sound design - which both is truly outstanding. Auf Einmal (All Of A Sudden) is a fantastic surprise coming from Germany, but telling a story that is entertaining and relevant also for an international audience. I saw press reviews were great, not only in Germany but also internationally, and I cannot wish more than a huge audience for this sleeper hit.

"Auf Einmal" or "All of a Sudden" is a German movie from 2016 that was released fairly recently on DVD, so it is still pretty fresh. It runs for 110 minutes and and is perhaps the most known work by writer and director Asli Özge and she also received a solid deal of awards attention for it, for example at the Berlin International Film Festival. The cast includes names like Hülk, Jentsch, Zischler, Gersak (a bit of a personal favorite), Heyer and more, actors that German film buffs have probably come across in other projects. And while there are some that left me fairly unimpressed and that I like more in other works (Jentsch especially, but that also had to do with the way her character was written), I would not necessarily say that the acting is a problem here, let alone the biggest problem. I do believe that the film is struggling with the direction he takes. At times, it tries to be a character study mostly about the protagonist played by Hülk while at other times it tries to be a mystery movie and wants to take the audience on an enigmatic journey with what really happened to the dead girl. Murder? Suicide? An accident? Anything else? The problem is that Özge never really decides which of the two paths she really wants to take and the consequence is something that we would call in Germany here "wischi waschi". Actually the Rammstein closing song is also a piece that summarizes this movie very well. It tries to be bold, but never really manages to be a creative achievement at all. And it struggles with the tone and atmosphere in general. By no means, this film is a failure and it has some fairly strong moments too, at least occasionally, but in terms of quantity these are also far away from what you would want in a film that is closer to 120 minutes than to 90 minutes. What else is there to say. The story about the death is nothing new or original really and has been done in many other films with better focus and attention to detail. So yeah I think the negative outweighs the positive here and I don't think the awards attention is appropriate. It is not one of the better German films of 2016. Not recommended.

The problem with 'All of a Sudden' is that main character Karsten, scion of a prominent family in his provincial German town, is not a very likable individual. It is hard to feel sympathy for a man whom we first meet as he is about to cheat on his girlfriend, and still harder when, instead of calling for an ambulance when his 'other woman' falls seriously ill, instead wastes quarter of an hour running to the local clinic. (And his messy blond goatee did little to endear him to this particular reviewer, either!) The woman's death, in his flat, plunges Karsten into the personal and professional doldrums but through it all he shows little concern for the suffering of those around him - still less the dead woman's husband and child - but instead concentrates on his feelings of victimisation (the realisation his girlfriend is leaving him prompts an annoyed "You've been looking for an excuse" rather than an acknowledgement of his own faults). Under the circumstances a certain amount of feeling sorry for oneself is understandable, but could actor Sebastian Hülk have done more to encourage audience sympathy? Or is it just the case that Karsten is not a nice man?An unlikable central character does of course set the film apart, and the mystery of just who the dead woman was and why she was at Karsten's party is nicely played-out without detracting from the central character study. The location shooting in the west German town of Altena provides some stunning autumnal landscapes. Other actors in the film - particularly Julia Jentsch as Karsten's girlfriend - provide competent performances. But I felt the film would have been more effective had it ended immediately after Karsten's confrontation with the woman's widower, even if the final few scenes are relevant to the story - and to the kind of man Karsten is.In short, I have mixed feelings about this one, but it was probably worth watching once.