Be My Star Review

Be My Star
Teenage sweethearts struggle to build a relationship while living on a Berlin housing estate.

by Patrick Peters |
Published on
Release Date:

23 Aug 2002

Running Time:

65 minutes

Certificate:

tbc

Original Title:

Be My Star

Euro-cineastes are doing their darnedest to convince us that the Austrian New Wave is the next big thing. But, rather like Jessica Haussner's recent adolescent angst drama, Lovely Rita, documentarist Valeska Grisebach's debut featurette is more promising than actually accomplished. Shooting on a Berlin housing estate, she fleetingly captures the myriad petty restrictions that make teenage romance both enchanting and frustrating. In particular, she nails the painfully immature disproportion with which 14 year-old Nicole Gläser and her swaggering, same-aged swain, Christopher Schöps, react to the slightest tiff.

Nicely-played all round, although Grisebach's most laudable achievement is her refusal to deal in the lurid voyeurism that characterised Larry Clark's brassier Kids.
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