Keswick Film Club - Reviews - Three Hours

This latest film to be shown by Keswick Film Club is a German rom-com set in Munich and directed by Boris Kunz. Many people in the large audience obviously enjoyed it very much. Sadly, I was not one of those people.

I am always wary of rom-coms as a genre because I assume films that fit that description are made for teenagers and it some considerable time since I have been one of those. However the brochure suggested that this was an off-the-wall example from a young director, and that the film would 'pay no heed to the traditional genre plot patterns of finding, separating, longing'. I beg to disagree. 'Three hours', which to me actually felt like three hours real time, was full of predictable cliché and stereotypes. Several moments in the film seemed to lift ideas straight from the wonderfully funny Four Weddings and a Funeral – but even that did not turn this dull, trite story into something entertaining.

I really tried to like this film; I wanted to be charmed and entertained and have a laugh but I failed. As we watched two (admittedly sweet) young people decide they have feelings for each other and then drift together, apart, almost together, apart; as we wondered will she won't she get on the plane and miss the opportunity of a life time (whichever choice she makes) I fought to stay awake and I wondered why I hadn't followed my instincts regarding rom-coms and stayed away.

This was a muddled, irritating story. The fact that God regularly appears as a man in a white suit to dispense advice to and drink beer with our young hero almost made it interesting in as much as it gave me something to think about -What on earth is the point of that? I thought.

The message of the film seemed to be that if you are young and slightly bohemian you can have it all. In the end and after a lot of messing about you can marry and make promises to your partner, but this doesn't need to prevent you from immediately getting on a plane in your wedding dress and disappearing off to Africa to do what you wanted to do in the first place, before marriage became an option. And what's more 'God' will watch and think it's all a bit of a romp.

I'm grateful to the club for bringing us a film from Germany – it seems it's been a while since we've had one, but for me this one missed the mark.