This German film is loosely based on Johann Wolfgang Goethe's life mixed with the plot of the Romantic writer's epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther.
In the film, the young Goethe (Alexander Fehling) failed his exams and was sent to the boring town of Wetzlar where his life will change forever. There, he befriended Wilhelm Jerusalem (Volker Bruch); the two of them under the employment of Justice Albert Kestner (Moritz Bleibtreu).
One night a a party, Goethe met the tipsy Charlotte Buff (Miriam Stein) and the two exchanged light insults though it is clear that at that very moment the two were attracted to each other. Goethe wooed her and the two fell in love.
There is, however, one problem. Kestner wanted Lotte for himself and being rich and influential, Lotte's father (Burghart Klaussner) wanted him to be his son-in-law, seeing the marriage as the only way to keep their house and to be able to send his children to school. Kestner and Lotte got married, but not without a lot of drama, as the young wife sacrificed herself for her family's sake.
Hearing of his beloved's wedding, Goethe writes a novella entitled The Sorrows of Young Werther which chronicles the love affair between him and Lotte. After that, he attempted suicide but failed.
On his return to his own town, he was surprised to find a crowd demanding copies of a certain book. He didn't know that he had become an in-demand writer. Turned out that Lotte sent the manuscript to a publisher.
This is a sad tale about a love that is not meant to be. The movie started out light with a little comedy here and there, then as suspense is built centering on the Goethe-Lotte-Kestner love triangle, the movies becomes dramatic. One gets teary eyed as Lotte confronts Goethe to say that theirs is a love not meant in truth, but in poetry. One cannot but cry as Goethe, flooded by sweet memories of a short love affair, pours his passion into writing and sketching, immortalizing a love that will endure only in the pages of literature.
This is one of the best films I have seen this year, thanks to Cine Europa and to Shangrila Cineplex. Because I have been studying and learning about material culture, I was fascinated with the details of this film, for instance, the costumes and the fashion, the glass windows, the stoneware ink bottle, the oven, and other things of the late 18th century.
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