System Crasher

System Crasher (⭐️⭐️⭐️)

Director: Nora Fingscheidt. Cast: Helena Zengel, Albrecht Schuch, Gabriela Maria Schmeide 

A raw, harsh, bittersweet, heartbreaking portrait of the world of foster homes, social care, a troubled child and all the people around her trying to help the best they can. The beauty of this German film (winner of the silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival last year and the Audience Award at TIFF, among the others) is the honesty of the way the story is told and the slow stark realisation that nothing is black and white and there are no simple solutions. Everybody is trying to do their best to help Benni, the 9 year old protagonist who’s desperately looking for the love of her mother (an astonishing performance by Helena Zengel who deserves all the recognition she’s getting) and yet nobody’s perfect and people are human and can make mistakes, often against their better judgments. They cross the line and (Understandably) get emotionally invested, beginning to loose their professional prospective and eventually compromising their work.

This is a rather bleak film (albeit with moments of extreme tenderness) that in a way highlights the invisible and at times inevitable cracks of the foster system. It’s certainly not an easy watch but it’s a powerful one and this is powerful film-making.

You can rent in on Amazon prime