Purely Joyful Movie!

For having a relatively low budget, the film's style and overall art direction are immensely impressive.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

"Eine aussergewöhnliche Affäre" or "An Unusual Affair" is a German television movie from 2002, so this one has its 15th anniversary this year. It is certainly the most known career effort at this point for writer and director Maris Pfeiffer, who is still a prolific small screen filmmaker these days. In terms of the cast, even big German film buffs like myself won't find too many familiar faces in here. The most known is certainly lead actor Hans Werner Meyer and he is also the main reason why I give this film a decent rating. From the poster you can already see that this is a gay-themed film, even if I don't like the term at all as films should not be defined by the sexuality depicted in there. There is a reason you don't use the term hetero-themed film or straight-themed film. I have been pretty harsh on many of them in the past years as honestly many of them plain suck in terms of the script and acting and people really only see it because it is about homosexuality and also like it for this reason while completely ignoring the bad production values and unrealistic plot. Not so this one here. Yes it does have occasional weaknesses, like the dialogues written for and delivered by the kids, but as a whole, it is working out nicely I guess. It does feel relatively authentic from start to finish and like I said the lead performance is quite strong. Also the film has some lucky coincidences like that the man and his wife do not have the greatest chemistry at all, but as this film is basically about them drifting apart, it is not too much of a problem. At slightly over 90 minutes, the film doesn't drag either which is always a pro and yes you were curious watching this one how it's gonna unfold, even if the basic direction becomes clear pretty quickly. I also liked that the ending is not 100% happy sacrificing credibility for such an approach. The characters feel like taken out of real life and this feels like a story that could indeed happen to your next door neighbor too and I believe realism was a big goal here for Pfeiffer. She succeeded from that perspective and also from others. A bit of a shame she did not manage a transition to the big screen in the last 2 decades really as this is easily among the better German TV films from its year. I recommend checking it out and this should not be taken for granted as I am quite critical on the core subject of the film usually. One example for the quality is that the film does not lose itself in aesthetic, but pointless sex scenes. At least not repeatedly, which is a frequent issue. Go see it.

I just saw this tonight and wondered what others wrote - apparently not much since there are only a couple other reviews here. The actors all were excellent - so often in films, characters appear to be playing a part and this came off very genuine. This is a story of a heterosexual married couple, both teachers at the same school where the husband falls in love with a new male teacher, much younger. I don't know if it is reasonable that the men were caught kissing at the school, but that device is as reasonable as any to get the story out in the open. I had bigger problems with the fact they made out on a school trip and at the younger one's home BOTH times standing right in the window without the curtains drawn. Seems rather reckless behavior to me. I had terrible subtitles with mine so I missed the part at the end about the mother & kids leaving Germany for Hollywood and I didn't understand why after risking and losing everything, the husband moved into his own apartment rather than with the younger teacher who he was supposedly head over heels in love with. Lastly, I would say for a man to struggle with homosexual feelings from youth, I don't think as another has done, this can begin to compare with a heterosexual affair since societal attitudes force most men to not deal with these feelings.

A new male colleague is introduced in a party an heterosexual married couple throws, and the husband starts growing an unseemly attraction that leads to an honest moving out, leaving wife and kids, openly admitting (after an unfortunate, careless incident exposing the two men in school - and in the eyes of a student) to his whole family his love towards another man.All this is noble enough and anchored in believable, more or less honest performances. But the point of view of the direction and the lengths the script wants to go in portraying the crisis this may bring into a family, has a curious effect. Make the following mental experiment: place in the place of the male colleague's a woman, and see if the structure of the narrative changes significantly. The answer is no. And ask yourself if what happens between the two men appears passionate and convincing enough when he is repeatedly asked on the seriousness of the affair. The answer is again no, so what we have is a film that falls flat on its face by seemingly touching a touchy social affair, while not giving and guarantying its specific structure, if it has one that actually and truly differentiates it from heterosexual love. To put it plainly, we feel more involved with the familial crisis rather than the blossoming (it feels rather stilted) love affair.So, when in the end we have mom and kids talking about going to California and Hollywood, this comes off as a high-pitched bad irony (intended, actually towards whom?) that strikes a stringent note. It is so self-assured an attack, but the problematic structure of the film turns it into an inane ending.

I saw this movie three years ago when it came out on German TV and saw it again just a few days ago when it got re-aired and the feeling was just the same. I was blown away by Hans-Werner Meyer's honest and pitch perfect performance. The movie as a whole is an excellent production, rare for German TV movies these days, but you can see it everywhere while watching the movie. The script is quite believable and the actors, everyone of them, is great. These are indeed outstanding performances by Hans Werner-Meyer as Jochen, Tatjana Blacher as his wife and Matthias Walter as Tom Leuthner.The story is simple it seems, the path for every of the persons involved is not. Jochen Wenzel is a thirty-something teacher in a small bavarian town, happily married with his wife Ina who wants to become headmistress at the local school, and two children. Jochen's life gets turned upside down when Tom Leuthner, a young gay teacher, becomes the new biology teacher at his and Ina's school. Tom is attractive, young and open about his sexuality and Jochen finds himself first confused by and later attracted to Tom. On a school trip both men start an affair. Ina is unaware of her husband's past (in which Jochen had had homosexual experiences) but notices the changes in Jochen's behavior.Soon Jochen finds himself torn between his family life and his love for Tom and when one of Jochen's pupils witnesses the two men kissing each other, Jochen is forced to decide between a life with Ina and their kids or acknowledge his love for Tom...