Barfuss (Til Schweiger, 2005)

In Barefoot, Nick is an itinerant loafer drifting aimlessly from one dead-end job to another until a day's stint as a cleaner in a mental hospital finds an inmate whose suicide attempt he prevented attach herself like a puppy to him. Unable to shake her off through various scrapes, he gradually discovers an attachment to her that he never had to any job or to his moneyed family or their obnoxious hangers-on.
Til Schweiger may be a quite a pin-up in Germany, so it helps that an international audience may know him for little more than a bit part as one of the Nazi hunters in Inglourious Basterds, and he does a surprisingly affecting turn as the misanthropic Nick, though the film probably belongs to Johanna Wokalek as the traumatised but naive waif Leila, who gets the lion's share of the moments of humour scattered through the film with her comically literal interpretations of the external world's mysteries.
Where the film stutters somewhat is in its transitions between this gentle humour and a desire to really jerk the heart strings; it rather wants to have its cake and eat it. It also creaks at times with an overreliance on soundtrack. But it's still a promising debut in solo direction for Schweiger, and rather sweet for all its foibles.


6/10