What is Kate Winslet doing naked in Hitler’s bathtub?: This week’s cinema releases

Things are getting naked in the cinema! Kate Winslet as Lee Miller and Margaret Qualley as a younger version of Demi Moore. James McAvoy as a strange family man and a student as an online camgirl are also eye-catching. Read our editorial team’s opinion on this week’s cinema premieres here.

1 The photographer

Lee Millerwho became known as the muse of the Parisian surrealist circle around Man Ray, is remembered as an influential war photographer. In 1945, she accompanied the US troops who liberated the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Dachau.

“I prefer taking photos to being one,” says Miller (Kate Winslet) takes stock of her life in the film adaptation. Director Ellen Kuras tells her story consistently from the perspective of her main character, who was misunderstood during her lifetime.

As a producer, Winslet fought for eight years for the film adaptation. Unfortunately, her fascinating biography only fills a conventional biopic format. At least the producer and leading actress breathes some life into the production.

In her best moments, Winslet storms through the film; for example, when she realizes that Vogue does not intend to publish her pictures from Dachau because, according to the editors, the world would rather put the past behind it. But to be an appreciation of Lee Miller’s legacy, The Photographer remains too tied to the key biographical facts. Andreas Busche

2 Speak No Evil

On holiday in Italy, Louise, Ben and their daughter Agnes meet the southern English couple Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara with their son Ant. After the Americans are initially a bit annoyed by the Brits, the couples get together over dinner and become friends.

Louise and Ben gladly accept Paddy’s invitation to visit them at their remote country estate. Once there, the Americans initially enjoy the idyll, but soon realize that Paddy and Ciara have completely different ideas about hospitality and upbringing.

Director James Watkins translated the Danish film of the same name, in which Danes meet Dutch people, into the American world of thought.

The fact that the clever, socially critical horror of the original is answered with blind gun violence, sex and racism almost demonstrates the trend of unnecessary Americanization of film material. The moral high ground here is held by the person driving a Tesla. Well, good night. Fabian Kurtz

3 The Substance

Elisabeth Sparkle hates what she sees in the mirror. The former film star’s fame has faded, and her last stop is a fitness show on morning television. And on her 50th birthday, of all days, Elisabeth learns that her station is looking for a younger successor.

“The Substance” by French director Coralie Fargeat is a less subtle but all the more effective satire on the beauty cult and ageism in the entertainment industry. Demi Moore is the perfect cast for Elisabeth, who at 61 years of age is a veteran of the beauty entertainment complex Yes, we have also done a lot to trick biology.

The film is reminiscent of the works of David Cronenberg. Elisabeth’s younger alter ego (Margaret Qualley) makes its way through her back, a real mess. Elisabeth also pays a high price for Sue’s peachy complexion, and a battle for control over the bodies begins. Andreas Busche

4 Broken. Alone. A Kinky Love Story

Flashback – back to the Corona period. Art student Sarah (Nora Islei) has to spend two weeks in quarantine. When she enters the apartment in a pink glitter jacket and a pink flamingo bike helmet to guard her own four walls for two weeks, she catches her boyfriend red-handed cheating on her.

Of course, as the national paintball champion, she throws him out with paint cartridges. The only downside: he spent the money they had together not on the upcoming rent, but on an online camgirl service. Now it’s time to get creative to earn money.

And what is the answer? Sarah tries her hand at being an online camgirl. What starts as a shaky mess of movements develops into art and sex therapy.

With a keen sense of human nature, Sarah talks about taboo subjects that shouldn’t be taboo. “Haters gonna hate,” so she goes her own way. She finds her new love provocative and a little offbeat. A treat for young adults. Anna-Marie Petruck

5 The beautiful summer

Ginia (Yle Vianello) is new in town. Things are going well. The young seamstress from the village works in a trendy fashion studio, she lives with her brother in a harmonious shared apartment, but the first sex is still a long way off. Then she meets Amelia, and suddenly her life is a wild whirlwind.

Amelia introduces her to the art scene in Turin, and Ginia is enchanted – by the freelance painters, the nightly absinthe under the open sky, and above all by her beautiful new friend. Female desire, polyamorous relationships, emancipation processes – that sounds absolutely contemporary.

The novel is based on “The beautiful estate” by Cesare Pavese from the 1940s. The three novels have lost none of their modernity “with the breathless search for the secret of life and the (…) jazzy rhythm”, the publisher said on the occasion of the new edition in 2021.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t quite apply to the film. We meander through Ginia’s life in a rather leisurely rather than feverish manner and without any tension. But anyone who gets involved will be rewarded with some really beautiful images. Antje Scherer

6 Samia

The athlete Samia Yusuf Omar As a nine-year-old girl in Somalia around the turn of the millennium, she had a dream: to become the fastest runner in her country, perhaps even in the world.

She will still achieve the first, but fate denied her the latter. Yasemin Şamdereli’s biography of the long-distance runner is a moving portrait of life and suffering in the splinter republic of Somalia. It is touching that Samia, whether as a nine-year-old or a 19-year-old, never forgets how to laugh.

And so, despite all the tragedy, “Samia” is accompanied by a smile that turns the entire cast of the film, as well as its landscapes, into faces of happiness and gives this story the face that it persistently tells: hope. Fabian Kurtz