Mister John (Joe Lawlor & Christine Molloy, 2013)

A man goes to Singapore following the death of his brother there, and tries to come to terms with his loss. This is all that actually happens in a film that is beautifully shot, avoids histrionics and features a subtle performance by Aidan Gillen as the bereaved brother.
But. This is the kind of self-consciously sensitive affair much beloved of critics who pour excessive praise on anything which is quiet and slow and aspires to say something about the complexities of emotion while not actually saying anything at all, because that would be too pat for an arthouse filmmaker (see much of the more high-brow end of French cinema). Hence, after an hour and a half of watching Gillen projecting controlled grief with few words, the experience is just of having stared into a delicately constructed void and having learnt nothing.

5/10

Honig im Kopf (Til Schweiger, 2014)

As a director instead of a rent-a-hunk, Til Schweiger does try, God bless. Here, it's with the topic of how to deal with a parent with Alzheimer's, and while the intention is clearly good, with many sensitive and informative scenes emphasising the hidden humanity in the afflicted that still needs to be fed with compassion, he can never quite hold back from going OTT for comedic effect, and that rather messes up the message (the wrecked garden party scene, in particular, is quite cringeworthy). It's like watching a Bollywood director who can't hold back the urge to chuck in a musical number at random.
All that said, Head Full of Honey is also basically a sweet story of an 11-year-old girl who bonds with her demented grandpa and takes steps to ensure that he goes out of life without pain. There is no narrative sense to how she achieves this and the universe that the characters frequent is pure consequenceless Hollywood opulence; this is the land of fantasy and that does grate when you are always aware of the real issue at hand, but Dieter Hallervorden's generous performance as the geriatric just about makes it work.

5/10