Oh Boy

Wednesday 13 August at 7.30pm

Jan Ole Gerster | Germany | 2012 | 88 mins | M offensive language

Screening courtesy of the Goethe Institut – members free, non-members welcome by donation (notes only please).

A funny, jazz-inflected account of a bad day in the life of an uber-cool young Berliner. With a knowing cinephile vibe, this was an unexpected box office and festival hit on first release.

“Niko (Tom Schilling) wakes up to what looks like the scruffy last goodbye of an exhausted relationship, and spends the rest of the day finding he’s slipped a few other moorings as well. He screws up a bizarre psychological test to reclaim his driving licence, his bill-paying father figures out that he’s not been to college in two years and a promising encounter with an old schoolmate gets very weird… Shooting in lustrous black and white, debut director Jan Ole Gerster guides us from ironic hipster comedy into a poignant ode to today’s Berlin, wryly placing Niko’s troubles alongside those of a handful of other Berliners who mistake him for a good listener and accost him with theirs.”—Bill Gosden, New Zealand International Film Festival 2013

While Berlin affords Niko the unique privilege of leading a reasonably comfortable life on very little money, his kind can be found all over the world, and in that respect, the film feels like a late, lost chapter from the French New Wave.”—Peter Debruge, Variety