User reviews

I've never seen Teresa Palmer in a film before, which is especially weird because she's Australian. I'm sorry that I haven't, because she was utterly fantastic in Berlin Syndrome.

The story is fairly simple; an Australian tourist is swept off her feet by a charming local in Berlin, staying with him for a couple of days before realising that she isn't allowed to leave.

Palmer's performance as Clare is so excellent that counterpart Max Riemelt can barely keep up, but keep up he does. His character, Andi, can be dashing, friendly and witty, or he can be sinister, cold and (perhaps most frightening) entirely unreadable. While director Cate Shortland surely deserves an enormous share of the credit, a scene I found simply remarkable is one where Andi suffers a loss and we as an audience are still able to feel sympathy alongside Clare for this monster of a human being.

Presumably borrowing the title from Stockholm Syndrome, the lines in the relationship of Andi and Clare do begin to blur throughout the film. Where Clare feels resigned to her fate, she attempts to make the most of her situation. It's a heartbreaking journey into the human mind and what it will do to survive – or keep from going insane. In certain scenarios it's impossible to tell if Clare is so deluded as to be sincerely happy or not, though these scenarios are of course interspersed with descents back into crippling despair.

What's interesting is that we don't simply follow Clare for the duration of the film, but just as often see how Andi is spending his day. It's an interesting division of screen time that frequently has the audience seeing a scene from Andi's point of view as he arrives home; we wonder along with him what Clare has been up to while he's been gone. It's a strangely fun viewing experience watching him examine the apartment for anything amiss or askew.

The cinematography is great, the score fantastic. One thing I loved about the film was its ability to convey so much wordlessly. The two main characters are regularly away from each other, and these scenes are therefore obviously less reliant on dialogue. Despite this, we are able to see and almost breathe the raw, exposed emotion of the duo.

The flaws in this film lay with a couple of weird editing choices (at some point we seem to be misled as to whether a character is painting their own toenails or someone else is painting the toenails of a cadaver, for some reason, and elsewhere a flight of stairs and multiple apartments could absolutely have been less disorienting). Clare also has access to a kitchen, but never uses a knife in an escape attempt. Because of the exciting moment where she finds a screwdriver in an early scene, one would assume that the kitchen is knifeless… but we're never shown an empty drawer or anything to indicate a lack of knives. It just felt a little off.

The ending was disappointing; it manages to be both predictable and nonsensical, which isn't a great combination. I didn't let that ruin the film for me, though; Berlin Syndrome is a wonderful character-study and a psychological tornado of violence and suspense.

Sidenote: Do people in Berlin just hate calling the police, or something?

http://alexfalzon.com/berlin-syndrome/ - for spoilers (and more reviews)

'Berlin Syndrome' was setting itself up to be something great, but it just couldn't quite deliver the knock-out punch. I love the idea for the story. It's creepy and a little too real (this kind of thing happens more than people realise). The characters were also well created. They were believable and charming in their own dark ways. Then there were two very fine acting performances by Teresa Palmer and Max Riemelt. So why didn't I enjoy this film as much as I should have?

The problem lies in the story development. There really isn't any. The film sets itself up and then just drifts along for the next two hours. Some films can get away with that but not when they run 20-30 minutes longer than they needed to. There was a lot that could have been left on the cutting room floor in this one. Then the ending came around and it was about as "meh" as you could possibly get. Very disappointing. Not a bad film, but if you're looking for something great, look elsewhere.

This film tells the story of an Australian tourist, who meets a charming German man while she is backpacking in Berlin. A night of passion then leads to months of nightmare, as she is locked up in his fortified home.

I have not heard of the film "Berlin Syndrome" before, so I was pleasantly surprised by how well made it was. The story is realistic, convincing and very very disturbing. The thing is that, it could really happen to anyone in every day life. How would you know your new friend is not a psycho? The man in the film is so sick and perverted, that words just cannot describe it. This fear and uncertainty translates to real life easily, which makes the film very engaging and unnerving. The thrill of the film is very well portrayed and maintained. I find myself hoping for the best, but mentally prepared for the worst. It is a surprisingly thrilling film, and I would definitely recommend it to other people.

"Berlin Syndrome" (Australia 2017) One of the newly available releases on Netflix from my Max Riemelt. A good (but not great) psychological thriller set in Berlin. Clare (played by "Point Break's Teresa Palmer) is a young Australian woman on vacation in Berlin. Andi (Riemelt) is a local high school teacher who she meets on the street/in a bookstore. What was intended to be a one night stand turns very wrong when she awakens the next morning to find herself locked inside Andi's isolated and (soon to be revealed) well-fortified apartment. The remainder of the film, which I would estimate spans a period of 6-9 months, is focused on Clare adapting and attempting to survive her captivity. There are clues that her predesessor didn't fare so well! Both leads did a decent job portraying their respective characters and the cinematography and sound editing were eerie and added to the film's overall feeling of tension. Critiques: the ending was pretty stale given all of the build-up and there was really no explanation of Andi's psychosis and behavioral anomalies (some hints perhaps but nothing at all concrete). Worth a look....just don't set your expectations too high. [3/5]

So what we have here, is Fifty Shades of Stockholm Syndrome (Google it if you're unsure what that is, the film will make more sense knowing the definition).

Right off the top, waaaay too slowly paced. I get it, it needed to be a little slow, but not 2 hours (that felt like 3) of slow. Had I watched this film at least 1.25x faster speed, and edited properly, it would have been more enjoyable, and shorter.

The directing was OK, the writing needed tweaking (e.g. the ending was too stale for all that tension that was built up) but the cinematography was on point.

The best part of this film was Teresa Palmer in her role... she aced it. Very convincing and played her emotional roller-coaster well. Max Riemelt was stale and I felt his role should have been cast better or he shouldn't have been as 'flat' as he was. The director needed to direct his role better as he was unconvincing.

The screenplay (combined in part with the score) was the only other positive attribute of this film. The tension was constant, and just when you relaxed, it got built up again.

There were however many plot holes - specifically the amount of defensive weapons available for escaping, such as the heavy pots on the stove, glass from any of the two broken windows that she could have hid pieces and slit his throat while he was sleeping etc... and unnecessary sub-plots (e.g. his dad, the parts when other women touched him and he portrayed a germaphobe).

A few ill-informed reviewers stated it was an independent film, of which it was not. Having production companies left right and center backing it such as: Aquarius Films, DDP Studios, Entertainment One, Film Victoria, Fulcrum Media Finance, Memento Films International, Photoplay Film, Screen Australia, and distributed by Entertainment One, Curzon Artificial Eye, Vertical Entertainment and Netflix... it's clearly not an independent film. For a B-type film with that type of backing, it needed to be much better in my opinion.

So rating it as a B-type film, it's a generous 6/10 from me.

This is one of those films where someone said "hey, what if..." and presented a very basic plot, then rushed out a draft script. Rather than redrafting and reflecting on how to make the story interesting and relevant in some way, they just pad it out to make it a feature length. As it is, what could have been a detailed, fascinating film ends up being empty and boring.

Where the story promises most isn't so much the escapist suspense side of things but the situation as a metaphor for relationships. Issues of control, dominance, repression of freedom, gender stereotyping, c0-dependency. Some of these ideas are hinted at but nowhere near developed, like the writer just didn't have the substance, depth or experience to know what they were doing or saying. There's one scene where the captor is shown to be a germaphobe, which is incongruent with many other scenes in the film (he basically never shows this OCD trait again).

As a suspense film it has the occasional moment, but is woefully under-written. It simply could have been a LOT better, especially given the two hour run time.

Underrated film. Starts slow but elevates the tension as it goes along. A solid unsettling thriller. Hopefully it won't put u off backpacking but it is a good film and will make u think of your choices not to trust everyone.

I just told you what this movie was to save anyone else watching this the time. By the movies description you might expect to see a suspense,thriller or even horror movie. Berlin Syndrome is none of those. I assure you the only person being tortured in this film is the viewer.

The movie goes along at a snails pace and the constant slow motion scenes with the violin music doesn't help. It just reminds me that I should of picked something better to watch.

The redeeming part of the movie is Theresa Palmer. The bad part of the movie are the annoying decisions her character makes. I won't say much since I want to keep this review spoiler free but the movie just doesn't do enough of anything.

Theresa Palmer's role is to play the dumbest woman in the world who for some reason cannot figure out how to escape an apartment or fend off her kidnapper when she pretty much is left at home alone days on end with nothing to do but think about escaping. I think any woman would of thrown a hot pot of boiling water on the kidnapper and made a run for it or maybe just hit him over the head with something heavy. There's scenes in the movie when you think that will happen because it should happen but it doesn't. This is a movie where you watch a character make dumb decision after dumb decision and all you can say to yourself is WHY!?!.

The Berlin Syndrome part or whatever she becomes dependent on her kidnapper if it's not obvious by the title and description but why is the question. He doesn't torture her enough to make her fear him and be compliant and he doesn't talk enough to brain wash her. The plot just seems to move along with little actually driving it.

He's interested in her I guess because she corrects his bad English? and she's interested in him because??? He's a foreign man and she's in a foreign land looking for an exciting experience?

I guess it's possible the way it went down in the movie she trusted him before knowing him but everything after that makes no sense. I won't even address the ending where another character decides to do everything but what a normal person would in that situation just for the sake of the dramatic plot.

I guess I should just leave it at that. If you're into slow love stories like the kind on Lifetime where the guy turns out to be a psycho or something than this is EXACTLY like those just with a bigger budget.

If you were a poor sap expecting to watch an exciting movie that's maybe well I dunno interesting this certainly is not that movie.

Perhaps at some time Australian director Cate Shortland may like to elaborate on her love/interest of all things German. Her second film Lore, was an intriguing German language, kind of a immediate post WW2 road film, set in Germany, with a significant Australian input into the production. Berlin Syndrome her follow-up film, is again set and largely filmed in Germany, but this time with mainly English dialogue and one of the two leads being an Australian. It tells the story of a young Australian photographer back-packing to Germany, where she meets an attractive young German secondary teacher of English. Waking up after consensually spending the night with him, she finds herself taken hostage by her would-be lover. It's the sort of movie that could have easily slipped into the horror/hostage sub-genre, but in Shortland's assured hands, it instead unveils as an intelligent and emotionally complex thriller.

Teresa Palmer, who previously has been one of those sort of actors, that consistently give decent performances in some pretty ordinary films, is excellent here as the subjugated victim Clare. As the title suggests, during her long onscreen captivity she appears at certain intervals to develop some sort of psychological alliance with her captor Andi, though how genuine this connection is, remains unclear and perhaps surprisingly, not all that closely explored.

What is surprising however is the narrative focus Shortland and screenwriter Shaun Grant are prepared to hand over to the character of Andi. In doing so, viewers end up finding a lot more about perpetrator Andi, rather than damsel in distress Clare. To Shortland's and Grant's credit, he is not painted as some sort of typically warped, lascivious lecher, though clearly still being shown to have issues. He is a capable teacher, who loves his elderly father with whom he spends regular time. We see he is not a complete social isolate, though is undoubtedly hermitic in nature and living arrangements. He is also shown to be mysteriously bitter about his unseen mother, who escaped to the West prior to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. A failing of the film in my opinion, is that despite this highlighting of the Andi character, we are still none the wiser at the story's conclusion, as to why he is motivated to behave in the fashion he does and periodically collect women to involuntarily share his deliberately restricted existence. Nevertheless Max Riemelt contributes a creepily effective Andi.

Also extremely effective and unobtrusively notable is Bryony Marks' highly inventive, selective score, besides Melinda Doring's carefully thought-out production design, which underlines Clare's boxy surroundings as a patchwork landscape of forbidden and permitted spaces.

The conclusion when it arrives appears somewhat rushed as if the creators just weren't quite sure what direction to take. It requires the lucky coincidental intervention of an earlier minor character. Whilst the third act isn't quite up to the standard of earlier parts of the film, Berlin Syndrome still remains as a piece of work worthy of attention. Meanwhile one might be forgiven for wondering whether director Shortland is intent on making a trilogy of German-themed films.

Australian Clare Havel (Teresa Palmer) is backpacking in Berlin. She meets a local named Andi and goes home with him. Next morning, she tries to leave after he left for work but finds that she's locked in.

A normal beautiful-woman-getting-kidnapped movie usually involves a violent shove into a murder van. The interesting change in this movie is that Clare willingly walks into her cage. It's a Venus flytrap. The moment of realization is great. I love the camera pushing in on the locked door. I would delay smashing the window. On the negative side, I don't think I care about the guy and his life. He's not original enough. This is a slow creepy movie.

Suspenseful, psychologically creepy, realistic which made it even more freaky, especially for females traveling alone. Be very careful about who you talk to while on vacation or anywhere.

The primal terror of captivity appears in everything from fairy tales to horror films, and female captives are particularly popular tropes for vulnerability to sexual abuse. Most captivity stories are framed into a binary where the captor is an evil ogre and the captive an object of sympathy. One of the many reasons the Australian made Berline Syndrome (2017) stands out as a psychological thriller is that it defies these conventions by portraying the captor as an almost normal professional guy and the captive as sexually complicit in her captivity.

The plot line is simple, linear and familiar. It opens with the wide-eyed wonder and excitement of young Aussie backpacker Clare (Teresa Palmer) arriving in the uber-cool city of Berlin. Like thousands of others, she is looking for adventure in a city famous for its architecture and nightspots and she is captivated by the beauty of the city. She meets German native Andi (Max Riemelt) and is immediately attracted to his Aryian good-looks and charming smile. He is a school teacher and thus trustworthy, so they hook up for a night of erotic passion and he leaves for school in the morning with her locked in his fortified, soundproofed, and isolated flat. Just an oversight, she thinks, but it happens again the next day. When she discovers her phone SIM card removed and finds an album of bondage photos the real terror begins.

The story itself is unremarkable, but the acting, filming, and directing make this a high-tension act from beginning to end. The key to this psycho-sexual thriller is establishing the 'normality' of the film's perpetrator so that we feel he is just another lovely guy. Once we are taken in by his charms, the film paces out in tiny incremental steps how Clare's discomfort changes to fear and then terror. The photographic style accentuates sharp close-ups on terrified eyes against out-of-focus backgrounds and an almost hand-held style of filming to emphasis the instability of the situation. Teresa Palmer is brilliant in showing the transitions from initial innocence and country-girl naivette to the palpable eroticism of domination and the stark realisation that she may not survive. Co-star Max Riemelt is her match in every way, evoking the charm and normality of an urbane teacher who is attentive to his students and respectful of his father. To the outside world, there are no warnings. Then slowly he reveals his distorted grasp on reality and deranged intentions to keep Clare as if she were a mere possession like a doll or a pet. His plans are not entirely sinister as he believes that love will blossom even in captivity. But in this fairy tale, the handsome prince morphs into a monster, a meta-reference to the millions of domestic abuse scenarios in which modern-day princesses still find themselves.

Many thrillers cannot sustain dramatic tension for a whole feature film but in Berline Syndrome it keeps rising until the climactic scenes when unexpected events overtake audience expectations. At times the pace slows down to create a sense of inertia in captivity but the ending is swift and satisfyingly conclusive. This is an engaging thriller that echoes parental warnings about strangers with nice smiles. Preying on such fears taps the right nerve to make any backpacker a little bit more careful.

In many respects, though apart from the title being a give away (which is nice, because having to watch a movie like this one without knowing its intentions is not something you want to do), the beginning may feel a bit slow. But you have to get to know the people you are about to watch. It's not like you will understand the motives behind it all just like that. But you will get hints and what makes the characters tick.

It's really tough to watch, especially later on, when it's really most viewers just wanting to step in and end it. But that is what the movie is counting upon, making you uncomfortable. That is what you are supposed to feel, even if you don't like it. It's not something that can be recommended to watch like that. This is not entertainment. Unfortunately it is something that has happened and will happen again. The movie does not tell us a way out as in prevention or how to avoid incidents like that. It points the camera and shows us the naked truth (also literally when it comes to the actors involved, which is a bold thing to do for them and not at all exciting for the viewer - or not meant to be at least)

Nothing much happens in this movie, except at the very beginning and very end. It's excruciatingly slow and boring. We don't get any insight into the characters, the dialogues are rare and do not serve any interesting purpose. In the end, it's just not enjoyable to watch. I can't think of any reason why someone would want to watch this thing.

Wow! This film really builds up the tension. I don't want to say much about the third act, except that I think it was good. I particularly enjoyed the sound design in this film, and how it added so much to the suspense and mystery. I wasn't immediately sold on the actors, but they sort of grew on me. They certainly played their roles well, I just felt like maybe they were lacking a bit of emotional range or chemistry with each other. It didn't detract from what is a truly excellent horror film of its genre. It is brutal, genuinely scary, haunting. You truly feel the hopelessness and anguish of the female character. The sheer dread of her situation. You wonder how you would behave if you found yourself in that same scenario. That's what good horror is all about.