Rent Alone in Berlin (2016)

Disappointing - Alone in Berlin review by GB

I so enjoyed the book, which built the tension so well. Although the cast was very good, I just didn’t have the sympathy I felt for the two main characters in the book.

Not a film to cheer you up if you are feeling low!

Film disappoints - Alone in Berlin review by GH

I read the book and it was very involving and holds the reader until the very end.So I really wanted to see the film.It was so different than what I was expecting,lots of the book glossed over,no slow build up to talk of,It really was rather dull.Good quality actors but the director did not get much of a performance from Emma Thomson who sleep walks through the film not generating the tension so well portraid in the book.

Excellent WWII drama based on a 1947 Hans Fallada novel which in turn was based on a true story - Alone in Berlin review by PV

Although it is slightly plodding, this is a film based on the final novel of troubled author Hans Fallada who lived through the Nazi regime in Berlin in the last years of his short life. He was and is well known in Germany.

There are many small stories of bravery and resistance from WWII. I had never heard of this one before. And it started early, in 1940 when Germany were winning the war, so unusual - there was much more resistance in 1942 when Germany started really losing on early 1943 when it lost at Stalingrad - Germany had lost WWII at that point really though it dragged on for over 2 more years in Europe.

Based on the true story of a working-class husband and wife Otto and Elise Hampel who, acting alone, became part of the German Resistance. Fallada's book was one of the first anti-Nazi novels to be published by a German after World War II. However, in real life it was Elise's brother who was killed in 1940, so the novel changed that.

Maybe best watched with 'Sophie Scholl: The Final Days' a 2005 film about resistance by the White Rose movement later in the war, from 1942 when Germany was losing. That movement though was 5 students and 1 university lecturer, and 6 were executed incl Sophie, who maybe gets most attention as she was female.

Anyway, I enjoyed this film and learning about an early resistance to the Nazi regime I had hitherto been unaware of.

Not 100% sure about the main character castings. Hence no 5 stars.

This film makes me want to read the novel.

4 stars

Moving quiet rebellion. - Alone in Berlin review by DW

I read the book and thought it one of the best I’ve ever read.

It’s a very detailed and long book and did wonder how it would be filmed as it would be hard to convey the story in detail without it being 8 hours long. I think they did a fine job on it.

If you are looking for action and fast pace then it’s not for you. It’s about the tension and turning grief into something positive.

Whilst eliminating some details from the book, I felt the performances were excellent and it showed the brutality and hopelessness people lived under the Nazis in Germany.

It is a slow film,but it has to be, it’s not a feel good piece, but the book isn’t either. It’s full of sadness and hopelessness, but this brings with it a future, which is the whole point of the book and movie.

Iwoukd watch it again as well as reading the book.

Recommended.

Enjoyable and painful - Alone in Berlin review by CSF

At last, more and more often, books and films tend to show the war (before, during, after) on the side of the Germans themselves. It is time to be reminded that these people suffered and were also victims. All the actors are outstanding. Heroism with 'little people' is always heart wrenching. The story exposes the feeling of million people who lost what was the most precious in their life and therefore had anything more to lose. However, as usual, it remains an enigma to see so many people submitted. The director should have shot one little scene at least, to show why people 'accept' horrible situations. Perhaps the reading of Baron Cohen's book, 'Zero Degree Empathy', would explain.