ARD shows "Kurzschluss" with Anke Engelke and Matthias Brandt: A television fortune cookie!

Created: 12/30/2022, 3:42 p.m

By: Katja Kraft

Great acting: Anke Engelke and Matthias Brandt in the captivating film "Kurzschluss".

©ARD

At the end of the year, Anke Engelke and Matthias Brandt shine in the ARD film "Kurzschluss".

This delightful comedy has the potential to become a New Year's Eve tradition.

Matthias Brandt doesn't think it's fair at all.

We neither.

Why, damn ax, does this magical TV prank end after about 30 minutes?

ARD will show “Kurzschluss” on New Year’s Eve 2022 at 7:30 p.m., WDR at 4:10 p.m.

And you can definitely tune in twice on the last day of the year (or watch it several times in the ARD media library) - this entertaining film could become a real New Year's Eve classic.

Everything is right here: direction (Erik Haffner), screenplay (Claudius Pläging and Max Bierhals), ensemble.

Matthias Brandt and Anke Engelke – that alone would be reason enough to tune in.

Two spectacle rockets that not only ignite on New Year's Eve.

Pläging and Bierhals have upped the ante with their laconic, funny, accurate lines from the script – for fireworks of entertainment.

“Kurzschluss” seems improvised in the best sense of the word

The starting position is reminiscent of the legendary series "Blind Date", in which Engelke inspired Olli Dittrich from 2001 to 2005.

The two of them always met each other as characters they had worked out themselves.

The highlight: you never knew what the other had prepared.

All improvisation.

“Kurzschluss” also seems improvised in the best sense of the word.

As a spectator, you like this form of acting because it gives you the feeling of watching real life.

And real life sometimes goes like this: Bettina Maurer (Anke Engelke), mayor of a small town, meets Martin Hofmann (Matthias Brandt) in a bank branch on New Year's Eve.

Due to a short circuit, the two are locked up shortly before midnight.

In real time we watch them try

somehow get out of the building.

After all, she has to press the button for the city's central fireworks display at midnight and he has to pick up his drunk daughter from a party.

Anke Engelke and Matthias Brandt show great acting skills

30 minutes follow, which bring everything to the bank branch carpet that makes us human so special.

And the way Engelke and Brandt go through the mood changes from anger to roaring anger, quiet hope, resignation and making the best of it in these 30 minutes is great cinema.

How, in his desperation, he tries to simply jump through the armored glass, how she stumbles over him, his facial expression doing so.

All the little gestures, looks.

Real acting.

Sometimes tragic.

Often very, very funny.

"If everything wasn't so shitty, it would actually be quite funny," Hofmann once said.

It's a good motto for less beautiful days in the new year that is waiting for us.

Laugh when in doubt.

Wisdom from the television fortune cookie 2022. (Read our interview with Anke Engelke here!)