Love in Thoughts (2004)

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This film tells the story of five young men and women who are in a complicated web of love and attraction. They go away for a weekend of supposed relaxation, but alcohol fuels them to a realm that they never thought they would go.The synopsis did not prepare me for the gloomy and dark theme of "Love in Thoughts". Who would have thought a few teenagers having some fun would lead to such disastrous consequences? I guess when affection is not reciprocated, the mind goes crazy and judgement is severely impaired. In this story, unfortunately most of the characters suffer from this. The story portrays love and jealousy very well, and I could really feel the characters' pain. It is sad that there was a lethal weapon available in the house. Otherwise things might have turned out differently.

'Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken' ('Love in Thoughts'), while based on a true incident in Berlin in 1927, is a story about the confusion of adolescent hormonally driven needs and desires brought to the screen by director Achim von Borries based on a dramatization by Hendrik Handloegten, Annette Hess and Alexander Pfeuffer of the Steglitz Student murders. It is as much a tale of the decadent 20s in the Berlin that would breed the Nazi Party as it is a stirring thriller. And if think back to the times of this story, a similar theme was being played out in this country under the names of Leopold and Loeb! Strange crossover...Paul (Daniel Brühl) is a student poet from a working class family who makes friends with Günther (August Diehl) who is a gay and wild romantic from the wealthy class. Their common thread is their sense of rebellion against their families and the need for Byronic defiance in a world they find shallow. The make a 'suicide pact' - that once they discover true happiness in love, and knowing that true love cannot be repeated, they will commit suicide. The two lads go to the country home for a weekend party of drinking and carousing. Günther brings along his love Hans (Thure Lindhardt), a kitchen worker clearly not in Günther's social class, who begins having a sexual liaison with Hilde (Anna Maria Mühe), Günther's lusty, superficial, hedonistic sister. Paul is in love with Hilde, but at the party he observes her acts of sexual freedom and turns to plain Elli (Jana Pallaske) for his initial sexual encounter. When Günther realizes he has lost Hans to Hilde, the options of the 'suicide pact' play out in a gruesome way. Paul is left to tell the story, later becoming a novelist (condemned by the Nazis and thrown into exile).Achim von Borries manages to recreate this sick tale with all the feeling of Weimar decadence. It takes a while to get the characters straight, but once they are in place the development of each has a fearsome momentum. The young cast is excellent. It is refreshing to see a film that includes a gay main character whose sexuality is at the core of his life but at the same time the story is not focused on the gay character so much as being focused on all youth in a cumbersome time in history and in adolescent physiology! The film is in German with English subtitles and presents the actual events of the case in writing on the screen after the story is completed. Very Effective. Grady Harp

I mostly agree with the reviewer who said that this is a "bad German" film. I came to expect a lot more from Daniel Brühl and August Diehl; Good Bye Lenin, Lichter, Vaya Con Dios and Das Weiße Rauschen showed that these two can REALLY play! The film left me quite indifferent and that really should not have been the case considering the story. The characters where so flat that I didn't really bother what happened to them. I have to disagree with the above quoted review in one point though. I thought that this was wholly different from a TV production cause the cinematography was really beautiful and stylish at times.Before the main film they showed the short film "True" by Tom Tykwer and strangely enough there was much more life in the 10 minutes of that film than in the 95 minutes of Liebe in Gedanken. You really shouldn't walk out of the theatre only capable of thinking about the pre-movie...

"Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken" is a fine made coming of age flick about a group young guys, who are playing with the Ideas of true love, the meaning of life and the question, if murder could be an expression of love. It tells a true story. And even if it set in the early 1930's, the questions and feelings witch are explored are timeless and that's why the movie is reaching us in our time and life. Daniel Brühl (good bye Lenin) and August Diehl (23) - both winner of the German actor-movie-award - playing their Part of the young feeling shaken men so touching and faithful, that you get to know, why they won their award. Brilliant Pictures, a great score, a touching story - a wonderful movie. This kind is a rare thing.