Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author and philosopher, was a young man like many other young men of the late 18th century, when he lived, or of the early 21st, when we do. So “Young Goethe in Love,” which opens today, is a charming coming-of-age movie about a charming, intelligent person who didn’t quite fit in.
Alexander Fehling, handsome, ingenuous and visually appealing, portrays Goethe in a film directed by Philipp Stolzl, written by the director with Christoph Muller and Alexander Dydyna. Goethe is hit a figurative one-two punch, a left hook when he is denied his doctorate, a right cross when a publisher rejects his book. His father, well-played by Henry Hubchen, sends him to a small town to work as a clerk of the court while he gets his head together and prepares a second intellectual assault on the Establishment.
But Goethe is not quite ready and a pair of intrusions sidetrack him. A newfound buddy, Wilhelm Jerusalem (Volker Broch), is happy to go drinking with him, and a charming, busy, red-haired young woman, Lotte (Miriam Stein), is eagerly available to be courted. She’s a hoot, in charge of a group of siblings being reared by her and her father (a delightful Burghart Klaussna) after the death, in childbirth by Lotte’s mother.
Considering Goethe’s often-ponderous prose, the movie would demonstrate how Goethe grew up to become Neil Simon, but such is not the case.
The young man’s boss, Albert Kestner (the terrific Moritz Bleibtrau), tries to keep him on the straight and narrow, but ends up as a competitor.
It’s an often-silly movie, but Fehling carries it off with great charm and insouciance, and Stein helps a great deal. A light-hearted movie on the ways of the world.
Young Goethe in Love opens today at the Tivoli
— Joe