Film Review

Goodbye Lenin (2003)

The story of what happens to a staunch socialist East German mother and her family
when the Berlin Wall falls in 1989. Their father had deserted them to the West years
earlier. The mother has a heart attack and collapses into a coma after seeing her teenage
son arrested in the October 1989 protest. She is hospitalized, leaving her two children to
deal with the political upheaval and rapid lifestyle change. Her unmarried daughter, with
one child, drops out of college taking a job at a new fast food restaurant. She takes her
manager as her lover. He moves in with them.

Her son, who gets a job in TV satellite installation, finds a lover in his mother’s young
nurse, a Russian émigré. When the mother finally emerges from her coma six months
later, they are told she must have no excitement due to her heart condition. In order to
bring her home, the son does everything possible to keep his mother calm by not telling
her about the regime change. The unbelievable lengths he goes to protect her from
learning of the change include refurnishing her room with old items they had discarded,
putting new food brands in old no longer available product jars and making dummy news
videos to show her on TV, as well as having her birthday party with old friends who also
pretend nothing has changed. The effects of the change in government are shown. The
plot becomes more complicated at the end when another lie is confessed by the mother
and the family dynamics shift abruptly. It is a heartwarming story, showing the impact
on the ordinary people of a major governmental change caused by the sudden unification
of Germany.

Director: Wolfgang Becker

Writer: Bernd Lichtenberg and Wolfgang Becker

Studio: X-Filme Creative Pool

Germany

Stars: Daniel Bruhl

Katrin Sass
Chulpan Khamatona

Rating: R
Color
Running Time: 121 minutes

Rating 6

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Type: Drama/Comedy
April 9, 2011