Germany 2016
Opening April 6, 2017
Directed by: Jakob Lass
Writing credits: Jakob Lass, Ines Schiller, Hannah Schopf, Nico Woche, Eva-Maria Reimer
Principal actors: Ella Rumpf, Maria Dragus, Enno Trebs, Orce Feldschau, Swiss
This successful fusion of realistic drama and female super-hero action film has been deservedly preselected for the German Film Award (Deutscher Filmpreis) 2017. It features Maria Dragus as Maggie a.k.a.Vanilla, and Ella Rumpf as Tiger. The first time Vanilla encounters Tiger is at a parking lot. She has had an awful day, failed the entry exam for police recruits and let herself be humiliated by a co-applicant. Now she has been overcharged in a parking lot that's overbooked. While she sits sobbing in her car, Tiger, the self-appointed parking attendant, solves her problem by swiftly knocking off the side-mirrors of another car with some well-placed "Kung Fu" moves. From now on Tiger takes Vanilla "under her wings" and miraculously appears to rescue her from dicey situations.
A friendship develops between these two women that couldn't be more different. Maggie reacts: defensively, apologetically and overly polite. Tiger acts: forcefully, violently and confidently. The motto that she tries to instill in Vanilla is: know what you want, say what you want, waste no time and get it any which way. Though debatable, there is a certain moral to it. At first it is exhilarating to watch Vanilla's growing empowerment but then she catches on in ways that even horrifies Tiger.
The film (fast-paced 90 minutes) is convincingly acted with entirely improvised dialogs! The terrifically choreographed fight scenes have been skillfully edited into the footage (Montage by Gesa Jäger und Adrienne Hudson). ()