Dying (2024) review

Life sure does pack a wallop for the Lunies family (as shown in five sections): father Gerd (Hans-Uwe Bauer) has a form of dementia and wanders aimlessly, mother Lissy (Corinna Harfouch) suffers from both diabetes and cancer (and goes to the toilet on the floor), their daughter Ellen (Lilith Stangenberg) struggles with alcohol addiction and is having an affair with a married co-worker and their son Tom (Lars Eidinger), a well-known conductor, tries to put together a new concert piece (called Dying) written by his friend Bernard (Robert Gwisdek), except it isn't meeting either of their expectations.  This is listed as a "comedy drama" although it's almost entirely the latter - no offense to the Germans, but the stereotype is a little true - and while the opening segment should resonate for anyone who's ever had to help out aging parents or grandparents, the rest needed substantial adjustments as it becomes over-reliant on gawdy scenes for tension: Gerd walking around naked and confused, Lissy having a heart attack, Ellen performing emergency oral surgery in a bar kitchen, Ellen vomiting in an opera house, Ellen getting hit by a car, Bernard bleeding to death in a bathtub and so on.  There might be a more streamlined movie in this three hour "saga" but it required significant rewriting: for example, the sequence where Bernard informs Tom he wants to die is ethically and morally interesting - and asks "what is a requirement of friendship?" - but it could have come from a different film.  Tom telegraphs the picture's intent early on by telling his musicians, "We have to earn the pathos at the end by being humble at the beginning" ... and yet Glasner kind of whiffs the execution (despite trying his best).