What a waste of my time!!!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Christian Petzold's Jerichow tells a familiar tale but is well-crafted and involves refreshing elements that make it distinct from the others. Personally I am not a fan of affair stories and there was a point in the film where it was slowly losing my attention but masterful Petzold hooked me back and held me until the end. To say it is a complicated situation is also nothing new, but this involves people who, unlike similar films of the same nature, are not well-off or privileged in their country. I loved the character Ali and the very 3-dimensional construction of his character, never forgetting the struggles of an immigrant in their new country (among other aspects).

This is really a movie which didn't need to be made. I watched it because I greatly admire Benno Fuhrmann's work in North Face and in Joyeux Noel (a wonderful film, BTW).Enough folks here have done the comparisons with Double Indemnity, etc. etc. The acting and cinematography and realism of this film are all perfectly adequate. However, there isn't much character development, and therefore, not nearly enough to make me care about the 3 main characters. In fact, the one we get to know best is actually the Turkish husband, and I had more sympathy for him in a way that for the two protagonists, largely because we don't really know them. The movie isn't full of a bunch of intriguing plot twists, and the action is relatively slow-moving. The aspect of this film which most interested us was the setting in a part of Germany which none of us have seen. My husband is German, and the part we know is the extreme southwest, nothing northeast. We were also interested to see contemporary Germany actually being depicted. But, I'm sorry, this just isn't enough to justify the amount of time.Producers and directors need to be reminded that people today have a host of other entertainment options available to them and any movie they make should be MORE interesting than say, watching a ballgame on TV, surfing the internet, playing video games, sex with spouse, camping in the woods, going out to dinner with friends, watching YouTube, etc. etc. In other words, having an interesting, entrancing story is, at least in my mind, a good half the value of a film. Unfortunately, so many movies today just don't seem to be aware of the demand for a decent story, and I don't get that. I read a lot of thriller novels, excellently written, all of which would make fantastic films, and furthermore, I know from the authors themselves that they have sold the rights to make a movie from the books. So, I ask myself, why aren't THESE stories becoming movies, instead of a lot of the ho-hum stuff that does become film?

German screenwriter and director Christian Petzold's fifth feature film which he wrote, is loosely based on the novel "The Postman Always Rings Twice" from 1934 by American author and journalist James M. Cain (1892-1977) and was screened at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, In competition at the 65th Venice Film Festival in 2008 and in the German Cinema section at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival in 2009. It was shot on various locations in North-eastern Germany and was produced by producers Bettina Reitz, Andreas Schreitmüller, Jochen Kölsch, Florian Koerner Von Gustorf and Michael Weber. It tells the story about Thomas, a dishonourably discharged former soldier who has returned to his home in a German village called Jerichow. Thomas has begun renovating his home and is having difficulties finding a job, but after a coincidental encounter with a Turkish businessman named Ali he is offered a job as a driver. Thomas and Ali becomes friends and he is introduced to Ali's wife Laura, but as the relation between Thomas, Ali and Laura evolves, Thomas and Laura falls in love and begins to make plans for themselves.Distinctly and finely directed by German filmmaker Christian Petzold, this eloquent love triangle draws an intriguing portrayal of a dangerous liaison between a wealthy businessman's wife and a lonely former soldier. While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions and the compelling cinematography by German cinematographer Hans Fromm, this somewhat romantic, at times humorous and character-driven thriller which examines themes like friendship, love, betrayal, crime and capitalism, contains a good score by composer Stefan Will.This poignantly atmospheric and finely paced fictional tale where a random meeting instigates a string of strange events, is impelled and reinforced by it's two merging studies of character, cogent narrative structure and the understated and involving acting performances by German actor Benno Fürmann, German actress Nina Hoss and Turkish-German actor Hilmi Sözer. A suspenseful and existentialistic love-story which gained the German Film Critics Award for Best Film Christian Petzold at the German Film Critics Association Awards in 2009.

The allusions to "The Postman Always Rings Twice" are obvious and don't need to be discussed. What interested me was the political allegory of this movie. It reminded me of Fassbinder. In the same way that "The Marriage of Maria Braun" is an allegory of Germany up to Unification, this is too, only in a more abstract way.Spoiler:One character = East GermanyOne character = West GermanyOne character = The United States.Watch the movie and fill in the blanks.The American character is clearest—generous but inept, suspicious of his charges, unappreciated, cheated, ultimately beside the point.The ending isn't Fassbinder, but it's close.