Kruger’s compelling performance gives emotional weight to an overwrought tale
Diane Kruger picked up a best actress award at last year’s Cannes film festival for her powerhouse performance in Fatih Akin’s knotty Hamburg-set thriller, originally entitled Aus dem Nichts (Out of Nowhere). Kruger is at the centre of almost every scene and her transition from tattooed bride to grieving victim and avenging angel dominates the drama. Focusing closely on Kruger’s subtly changing features, Akin, who earned international awards with films such as 2004’s Head-On and 2007’s The Edge of Heaven, makes the most of Kruger’s ability to convey fierce inner torment; steeliness mixed with vulnerability. It’s a mercurial performance, subtly modulated, and somewhat at odds with an increasingly melodramatic potboiler that flirts uneasily with the pulpy conventions of vengeance-fuelled B-movies.
Kruger plays Katja, an independent spirit devoted to her young son, Rocco (Rafael Santana), and his Kurdish father,...
Diane Kruger picked up a best actress award at last year’s Cannes film festival for her powerhouse performance in Fatih Akin’s knotty Hamburg-set thriller, originally entitled Aus dem Nichts (Out of Nowhere). Kruger is at the centre of almost every scene and her transition from tattooed bride to grieving victim and avenging angel dominates the drama. Focusing closely on Kruger’s subtly changing features, Akin, who earned international awards with films such as 2004’s Head-On and 2007’s The Edge of Heaven, makes the most of Kruger’s ability to convey fierce inner torment; steeliness mixed with vulnerability. It’s a mercurial performance, subtly modulated, and somewhat at odds with an increasingly melodramatic potboiler that flirts uneasily with the pulpy conventions of vengeance-fuelled B-movies.
Kruger plays Katja, an independent spirit devoted to her young son, Rocco (Rafael Santana), and his Kurdish father,...
- 6/24/2018
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
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