MonsterPerfect Good idea lost in the noise

Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Kirpianuscus for a viewer from Eastern Europe, it is a special film. not for the story itself or for performances but for the great themes who are opportunities for not ignore the past. because the nostalgia for the image of a better past, the every day realities under Communism, the need to escape from the pressure of dictatorship in its different aspects and, after 1990, to adapt yourself to the democratic values are basic things who impose !Good Bye Lenin !" as a must see. the film works with simple fragments of facts. and it does it in admirable manner. so, an useful film. especially for the memory of a viewer from East.

Matt M I watched this in my German Cinema class, and I very much enjoyed it. The cast members were all well-suited to their roles, the plot was engaging, and the film editing was beautiful. Good Bye Lenin! is a tragicomedy which takes place mostly in East Berlin in 1989 and 1990. It opens with Sigmund Jähn's flight into space, and the subsequent televised "wedding" of the German and Soviet children's television characters Sandmann and Mascha. Through the entire film, space is a recurring theme. As a child, Alex shoots a rocket "into space as the second German in space." As Christiane lies comatose in the hospital, Alex compares her to a satellite circling around "our small planet and our still smaller republic." Alex, an East German, also meets and falls in love with a Russian nurse named Lara. This may be a parallel for Sandmann and Mascha. After the fall of the wall, Alex gets a job where he installs TV satellite dishes with Denis. In East Germany, space was for science; after the wall came down, Alex sells space for consumption and entertainment. Other references to space: Denis shows Alex his home film service ad, based on 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Interestingly, Good Bye Lenin! was finished in the year 2001, but only available beginning in 2003.) When Christiane has her second heart attack, Alex meets Sigmund Jähn in person, but he is a simple Taxi driver. In the GDR that Alex creates for his mother, Sigmund Jähn, the first German in space, becomes the chancellor. He and his work are symbols for the best of the GDR—what, in Alex's mind, it could and should have been. The ideals of freedom, unity, and hope of a better society marked by fairness, peace, and advancement find embodiment in Sigmund Jähn and his trip to space. Goodbye Lenin! offers plenty of humorous moments, despite its tragic aspects. A lot of the humor is cultural, and makes sense only if the viewer has some understanding of East/West German history and culture. Still, I would recommend this movie to English speakers and German speakers alike.

William Musser Having just watched this movie again after a few years, I have confirmed how much I liked it the first time, and discovered underlying sub plots. I have not read every review but have not seen this in the ones I have read. That is that deception, from the state to the people, between the people, (even the ones you love) and in the media is flourishing. The mother withheld letters sent from the absentee father to his children. The children withheld that fact that the country she loved had failed. The state withheld about everything. And the mother's television, her only connection to the outside world, broadcast news concocted by her son. She does not discover the truth until she gets out of bed, ventures into the world, makes her own investigation, and comes to her own conclusions. It reminds me of a passage in "The Lord of the Rings" that goes something like this; "Evil has not changed since yesteryear and it is not one thing for man and another thing for elves and dwarfs. But it is up to us to discern it in the Golden Wood or in our own homes." Considering the amount of misinformation we are fed from the network owners, government, industry, it is an important lesson. And with the advent of Photoshop, the internet, truth has become much more elusive. We cannot believe what we see, hear or read. This leaves us our sense of smell as the only sense capable of determining the smell of untruth.

petarmatic When Wall fell in 1989 we had no idea what a change would it create in the Eastern Europe, luckily without blood in most of Europe with notable exception of the former Yugoslavia.This film portrays that sudden and unexpected change in a funny and cute way. Finding pickles was some undertaking! That reminds me on how when I set off to find some piece of clothes or something else I can not find it. I find things I do not need, but what I need at that particular moment no way in hell! I loved the plot, I loved the acting, fast pace of the film. What an excellent and relaxing entertainment! I would strongly recommend that you find this film and watch it!