Zazie, a passionate single (as in: incapable of maintaining relationships) in her mid-twenties, is unable to prevent the wedding of her oldest friend – at least not the first time. Then she realises that she is trapped in a time loop forcing her to relive the wedding day again and again and again...

Zazie is in her mid-twenties and has inherited a pronounced inability to maintain relationships from her parents. She shares a wonderful flat with two no less commitment-incapable men – friendship is great, but who needs love with a capital L? Her oldest friend Philip, apparently, because he wants to get married to the wrongest of wrong women possible. Zazie just can't let that happen! She ends up arriving too late for the wedding ceremony, but she ruins the party afterwards by getting fall-down drunk from too much pink champagne and vomiting all over the bride's wedding dress. "It's not that bad," the toilet attendant says dryly, "in another universe, it went differently. There are millions of universes." And after Zazie sleeps off her hangover, she comes to realise that while she has not entered another universe, she has fallen into a time loop, which means that she can try to prevent the wedding again... and again and again and again. Using a quick tempo and likeable characters, director Maggie Peren plays with the familiar tropes of the rom-com genre and hits the nail on the head when it comes to the romantic attitudes of her protagonist's generation.


What the critics say:
"A romantic comedy in which the main character gets stuck in a time loop – a Hollywood classic promptly comes to mind: Groundhog Day, which hit the cinemas 27 years ago (!). Really. But: Hello Again is younger and fresher, and with every loop of the day Zazie learns a little bit more. The film, however, is not just about mid-twenty-year-olds who are incapable of maintaining relationships; it's also about their parents, who have not exactly been the best of role models when it comes to marriage and relationship issues." (Andrea Burtz, WDR 2, 17.9.2020)


"It is no coincidence that the author and director, Maggie Peren, named her female main character 'Zazie', after Louis Malle's enchanting film from 1960. In that the film, a multitude of stylistic devices dissolves the reality of space and time; to keep her protagonist trapped in a time loop, however, Peren simply stops time and spools it backwards. The plot device is not new. Bill Murray already lived through it in Groundhog Day in 1992, and recently it was even used for an episode of Tatort, the German TV crime movie of the week, entitled Murot und das Murmeltier (Murot and the Groundhog). Just like Bill Murray's character became a better (and more lovable) person, in Peren's film the main character also learns several things about herself: What is it about her childhood friend's wedding that bothers her so much? What can she do to win his love? And who does she actually really love?

As in the cinematic predecessors, the time-loop narrative results in small but surprising variances. Zazie learns from her experiences. She gathers targeted information to use on the next day. The inevitable consequence: she knows more than the wedding guests that she sees day after day. This information gap is responsible for a lot of situational comedy, which entertains in a charmingly intelligent and cleverly witty manner. For example, the day always begins with the sound of Patrick's energetic lovemaking next door, which invariably leads to a porcelain figure falling off the shelf in Zazie's room – until the young woman takes the trouble to catch it or to ensure for a soft landing. That the film works so well is also due to the young cast involved. Alicia von Rittberg's enchanting charm and flustered confusion is convincing, while Edin Hasanovic, as the somewhat dense and boorish softie with a tendency to nap, provides the necessary slapstick.
Maggie Peren deals nimbly with a contemporary problem: an ever-growing number of young people are afraid of committing themselves. Their parents and role models didn't exactly show the way. How can you believe in a lasting relationship when your worst childhood trauma was the separation of your own parents? Zazie, Anton and Patrick are 'scarred'. But it is a given of the time-loop set-up that they also evolve and free themselves of their dilemmas. Bill Murray showed how to do it." (Michael Ranze, FilmDienst)


Frederik Lang (10.03.2021)

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

2019/2020

Production Year

2020

color

color

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

Love Film, Comedy

Topic

Love, Relationship / Family, Friendship

Available Media

Blu-ray Disc, DVD, DCP, Digital Film

Original Version

German (de)

Blu-ray Disc

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Arabic (ar), Russian (ru), Czech (cs), French (fr)

DVD

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Arabic (ar), Russian (ru), Czech (cs), French (fr)

DCP

Subtitles

English (en), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (short), Arabic (ar), Russian (ru), Czech (cs), German (full), Romanian (ro), French (fr)

Note on the Format

Die DCP sind verschlüsselt
rumänische UT nur auf 1 DCP (pix268-Final)

Digital Film

Subtitles

Chinese (short), Czech (cs), English (en), Arabic (ar), Portuguese (Brazil), French (fr), Romanian (ro), German (full), Spanish (Latin America), Russian (ru)