Friendship (4½ Stars)

Friendship!

The amazing true story of the first Ossis in America. Well, maybe they weren't the very first, but it makes a good tag line. Tom and Veit are two teenage boys who go on a journey to the USA in early 1990, after the Berlin Wall has fallen but before reunification. When they arrive they proudly describe themselves as Communists, not realising how unpopular this will make them. And the problems begin. With hardly any money in their pockets and almost starving they hitch hike from New York to San Francisco, where they want to meet Veit's father who ran away to America 12 years earlier. All that they have to give them strength is their friendship, but even this is put to the test when they fall in love with the same girl in New Mexico.

This is an amazing film which didn't seem quite so funny the first time I watched it, but it made me laugh out loud today. It was released in the cinemas in November 2009 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. Five years later it's just as relevant.