Good Bye, Lenin!

GOOD BYE, LENIN! — *** — Daniel Bruhl, Katrin Sass, Chulpan Khamatova; in German and Russian, with English subtitles; rated R (profanity, violence, brief sex, brief nudity, vulgarity).

"Good Bye, Lenin!" does a better job of summarizing the politics and recent history of Eastern Europe than you might think could be crammed into a movie that runs less than two hours.

And this is not a documentary but a character-driven, narrative feature film.

This German-made comedy-drama isn't always successful with everything it tries to do, and there are a few places where it really starts to drag. But there's just enough quirkiness, enough genuine warmth and emotion, to help it get by.

As you could probably guess by the title, "Good Bye, Lenin!" witnesses the fall of socialist East Germany, as seen through the eyes of the Kerner family. Sort of. . . .

Matriarch Christiane (Katrin Sass) is a devoted member of the Socialist Party — and becomes even more devoted when her physician husband (Burghart Klaussner) abandons Christiane and their two children.

Years later, she suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma just as the Berlin Wall is coming down. And when she awakens eight months later, her devoted son Alex (Daniel Bruhl) tries to conceal that from her. He's afraid it might adversely affect her health, so he uses faked news reports to convince her that all is well and nothing has changed.

In tone, the film is somewhat reminiscent of "My Life as a Dog" (1987), although that was a coming-of-age film, and this one is more about the bond between a mother and her adult son.

Co-screenwriter/director Wolfgang Becker doesn't allow the story to become sickeningly sweet, and there's some unexpected tenderness and truthfulness here. Bruhl and Sass are both convincing and appealing, and the same goes for actress Chulpan Khamatova, as a sympathetic student nurse who initially aids Alex and then convinces him to take a different course of action.

"Good Bye, Lenin!" is rated R for scattered use of strong sexual profanity and some sex talk, violence (rioting, including shootings and some explosive mayhem), brief sexual contact and brief female nudity. Running time: 118 minutes.

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com