Big Girls Don't Cry (4 Stars)

When I bought this film on DVD I had no idea what it's about. All I knew is that it stars two of my favourite actresses, Anna Maria Mühe and Karoline Herfurth. It also stars Jennifer Ulrich in her first film role, but I didn't recognise her until the second time I watched the film. I'm not used to seeing her as a blonde.

Jennifer Ulrich isn't a natural blonde, obviously.

Now to the plot. Steffi (Karoline Herfurth) and Kati (Anna Maria Mühe) are two 16-year-old girls in Berlin. They live in the eastern part of the city that was still ugly when the film was made in 2002. It looks better now. The two girls have been friends all their lives, and they're still inseparable. Yvonne (Jennifer Ulrich) is an outsider. She doesn't have any friends in school. She wants to be friends with Steffi and Kati, but as they say, "Three's a crowd".

Yvonne is beaten by her father so badly that she has bruises on her back. She wants to go to Paris as soon as she's saved enough money. It's not easy to make money when you're 16, so Yvonne does the only thing she can: she dances naked for a man who makes pornographic films.

Kati's parents are strict Catholics. They try in vain to stop her going out with boys. It's not a happy family. Kati's parents shout at one another so often that Kati and her little sister sit together shivering.

Steffi is the only one of the three girls who has a happy family. Her parents both have successful careers, and they love one another very much. Or so she thinks. Steffi's world falls apart when she finds out her father is having an affair. She wants to make the woman suffer.

Steffi's revenge is trivial at first, nothing more than pranks. She scratches the woman's car and squirts glue into the keyhole of her apartment. When she finds out that the woman has a teenage daughter the revenge becomes more sinister. Steffi pretends to become friends with the daughter, a shy young girl called Tessa. When Tessa says she wants to become a singer Steffi sends her for an audition to the man that Yvonne works for.

Kati thinks this is going too far, so she follows Tessa and waits outside. When she hears screaming she bursts in and finds the film producer attempting to rape her. Kati doesn't tell Steffi about this because she doesn't want her friend to know that she foiled her plan.

Tessa is played by Josefine Domes in her only film role. She's now a professional singer who has been a member of different groups. She also composed and sang several songs for the film soundtrack.

Shortly after the attempted rape Yvonne disappears. Steffi assumes that Yvonne has gone to Paris, but Kati suspects that she's been murdered by the film producer. Under the stress the two friends grow apart and stop talking to one another.

The DVD that I watched today, the English edition, is packed with special features, including interviews with the director and the cast. The director, Maria von Heland, who also wrote the screenplay, says that the film is about the problems of being a teenager. I'd say that the film is about more than that.

I was confused by the interview with Anna Maria Mühe. She was asked if it was difficult to play a nude scene in her very first film. Nude scene? I didn't see a nude scene. It must have been cut from the English edition, possibly because Anna was only 17 when she appeared in the film. I don't know.

I have to criticise the English DVD for another reason. The volume is so low throughout the film that I had to turn on the subtitles. I could hardly make out what the girls were saying to one another.

Despite the serious subject matter the film isn't too intense. The only thing that's intense about the film is the grey concrete buildings of eastern Berlin.

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