Jonathan (3 Stars)

This is the first film in the Stuttgart White Nights Festival.

Jonathan is a young man who's been born with a rare form of multi personality disorder. Since birth he's had two personalities in his head that have taken over at random intervals. Effectively he has two different people living in the same body. When one person takes over he has no memory of what the other person did. With the help of an electrical medical aid the changes can take place twice a day. Jonathan 1 lives from 7 am until 7 pm, Jonathan 2 lives from 7 pm until 7 am. They live by a series of mutual agreements. Each of them sleeps for the last four hours of his time, so that they both have eight full hours to be awake and active.

One of the other parts of the agreement is that they leave video messages each day with a summary of what they've done.

We see the whole film in the life of Jonathan 1. We only see Jonathan 2 in his video messages. He goes to work every day, doing a part time job as an architect. He can't fit more than six hours into his active time. Jonathan 2 goes out in the evenings and has a social life. That suits their personalities. Jonathan 1 is a loner who enjoys solitude, whereas Jonathan 2 likes to mix with people. Jonathan 2 has slept with several women, but Jonathan 1 is still a virgin. Casual sex is allowed, but it's one of their agreements that neither of them should have a girlfriend, because that would cause problems.

Jonathan 1 finds out that Jonathan 2 has broken the rules and has a steady relationship. When challenged, Jonathan 2 grudgingly breaks off the relationship. That would put everything back to normal, except Jonathan 1 meets the girl and falls in love with her.

This is an interesting film, but for my taste it's too slow. Too little happens in the 90 minutes run time.