In the Fade
If you’ve only seen Diane Kruger as a slightly insipid Helen in the 2004 historical epic Troy, you will be completely unprepared for her “titanic” performance in this searing new German-language revenge thriller, for which she “rightly” won the best actress award at Cannes last year, said Tom Shone in The Sunday Times. In Fatih Akin’s film, she plays Katja, a woman who (against her family’s advice) has married her jailed former drug dealer, a Turkish immigrant. On his release, he turns his life around – only to be blown up, along with their young son, in an explosion at his office in Hamburg. Kruger’s evocation of a mother’s grief, coursing through shock, rage and despair, is truly harrowing, said Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent. But In the Fade is more than just a study in loss. It is also an examination of urban life in contemporary Germany, and – as the accused (a neo-Nazi couple) are identified and tried – a “gripping” courtroom drama, said Ian Freer in Empire. Unfortunately, in the third act, following the aftermath of the trial’s verdict, the film descends into unconvincing melodrama. This is a “flawed” movie, but a “powerful” one, worth seeing for Kruger’s “revelatory” performance.
