This German, 110-minute film from 10 years ago is a clash of two extremes. First of all, there is the extreme mediocrity that Til Schweiger brings to all his movies. The directing is nothing special, the writing is pretty much the same as always for him and he plays the lead character who is basically exactly the same guy he played in "Keinohrhasen" and a couple other movies. The second extreme would be Johanna Wokalek. She is truly outstanding in this film and elevates the material by so so much. I had to think of a German version of Nell on several occasions. She is a woman in the psychiatric ward of a hospital, who has severe personality struggles and is pretty much unable to make the most simple social conversations that come so easily to most of us. She nails pretty much every scene she is in and brings a unique vulnerability to her character.
Schweiger's character is a playboy and he gets a job at the ward where Wokalek's character is in. After some confusion, the two end up together and yet there is always the danger that it could look like he abducted her. The scene with the two at the wedding was maybe the best of the film. Even the writing there was pretty decent. And I have to hold another thing in Schweiger's favor. He cast several actors here who are known for having very little range and yet he got solid performances out of Axel Stein, Alexandra Neldel or Janine Kunze and a couple more. Admittedly, their characters also did not have that much screen time and most of them were even written worse than portrayed. The film is occasionally over the top in terms of trying to make a dramatic impact (the inclusion of "Hallelujah") or also in terms of comedy (a couple pretty bad wordplays, for example one scene where it's confusing who Schweiger's character is in love with). However, my final judgment here is a recommendation because Wokalek is simply so good that you could give it a try. Without her, my rating would probably be two stars lower. It's quite a pity that she appears so rarely in films these days as she is certainly among Germany's most talented actresses. So yeah, give "Barefoot" a go if you get your hand on a copy.
Schweiger's character is a playboy and he gets a job at the ward where Wokalek's character is in. After some confusion, the two end up together and yet there is always the danger that it could look like he abducted her. The scene with the two at the wedding was maybe the best of the film. Even the writing there was pretty decent. And I have to hold another thing in Schweiger's favor. He cast several actors here who are known for having very little range and yet he got solid performances out of Axel Stein, Alexandra Neldel or Janine Kunze and a couple more. Admittedly, their characters also did not have that much screen time and most of them were even written worse than portrayed. The film is occasionally over the top in terms of trying to make a dramatic impact (the inclusion of "Hallelujah") or also in terms of comedy (a couple pretty bad wordplays, for example one scene where it's confusing who Schweiger's character is in love with). However, my final judgment here is a recommendation because Wokalek is simply so good that you could give it a try. Without her, my rating would probably be two stars lower. It's quite a pity that she appears so rarely in films these days as she is certainly among Germany's most talented actresses. So yeah, give "Barefoot" a go if you get your hand on a copy.