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Movie tells the story of two people who are in the middle of their lives and are on the run from their former lives. They are running away from something, struggling with themselves and the life decisions they have made so far. Professionally and privately, they are stuck in a dead end. The film's problem: plot, dramaturgy, aesthetics and characters. Virtually everything here seems so inauthentic and contrived that it is a real annoyance.

Added to this are cliché-ridden moments, that can also be found in every second Sunday evening tearjerker on public TV. Complemented by kitschy, romanticized images of a setting characterized by idyllic nature and endless vastness (here: the rugged landscape of the Isle of Skye). Those sentimental, trivial, clichéd situations appear very early on in "Falling into Place", for example when the two main characters meet in an island pub.

A lot of things simply seem deliberate and forced, supplemented by coincidences that are implausible and not conducive to authenticity. For example, the script's decision to have the two people searching for meaning live in the same city of all places. And only just miss each other several times. The themes dealt with in the film are essential and would deserve to be examined in detail. It is about repression, family trauma, loss and fear of commitment. But sadly, they aren't. The films stays on the surface.

Back in London, Kira is trying to come to terms with the break-up with her boyfriend. And Ian, who has a girlfriend, also wants a change in his love and relationship life. Aylin Tezel and Chris Fulton visibly make an effort. However, the weaknesses in the script and the exhausting, often lecturing comments, also the pleasing one-liners reminiscent of calendar sayings ("It's painful to know that everything is replaceable") are quite annoying. A rather painful watch, I must say.

I give three stars for the effort and because it's a first feature.

This is another sci-fi movie with an interesting premise and a thoroughly mediocre follow-through. Science fiction excels, when it exploits a radical premise to talk about current social problems, but Paradise fails to capitalize on its clever ideas. How are you going to make a movie about selling your lifetime to the rich and not talk about wage labor? It's not a big leap, guys. After introducing this macabre new industry, the movie turns into a paint-by-numbers action thriller, completing wasting its intriguing premise. Not once you see a billionaire taking lifetime from a poor fella, becoming young, while the poor chap turns old. Theissen doesn't count because she primarily is a scientist, not a billionaire, and has invented the process, plus she is taking her lifetime from a rich woman living in a luxury penthouse, who was dumb enough to burn it down. We don't really root for her, she's not a likeable character, and later in the movie we find out how selfish and ruthless she really is.

It's difficult to find a way to talk about this movie constructively, because it left me feeling bored and disappointed. At least if I were enraged I'd have something to say about it, but this German production is the cinematic equivalent of dry toast. As soon as you get past the exposition, it's exactly like half a dozen other lazy sci-fi movies which can't figure out how to make the most of the genre. Another interesting idea left to die gasping on the altar of mediocrity.