Part of The Oregonian's team coverage of the Portland International Film Festival....
Writer/director Jan Ole Gerster's first feature "Coffee in Berlin" (originally released in Germany as "Oh Boy") does a fair job riffing on the usual beats of the slacker indie.
An unemployed college dropout (Tom Schilling) with serious life-commitment issues wakes up in Berlin and drifts through a seriocomic day that includes a disappointed girlfriend, a psych eval, an even more disappointed father, a movie-set visit with a struggling actor pal, a wacky neighbor, a wounded actress and that hoariest of slacker-indie clichés, the truth-telling barfly -- among other loosely structured incidents that may or may not serve as a twentysomething's wake-up call.
Schilling's character is just enough of a vaguely unpleasant blank that he's a little hard to root for, frankly, but the whole enterprise still manages a low-key appeal, thanks in part to its attractive black-and-white cinematography.
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(Germany; 88 min.) Grade: B-minus. Showtimes:
- 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 14, OMSI
- 2:30 p.m. Monday, Feb. 17, Cinemagic
'Coffee in Berlin' (The Oregonian, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014) [ PIFF website listing ]
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