Codependent guy-relationship buddy comedies have taken innovative forms within the past decade: Superbad was a classic, Seth MacFarlane’s Ted featured a cussing talking teddy bear, and Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin’s indie gem, The Climb, presented a hilarious saga through a continuous one-shot. Above all, these movies were funny and had heart. Neither component is present within Marco Petry’s German-language My Best Friend, His Girlfriend and Me—an unfunny (to speak German) dreck that, like its characters, is a juvenile, mean-spirited, and insufferable experience that I wouldn’t recommend even to my greatest enemy.
The film focuses on Olli (Kostja Ullmann), a reckless, inconsiderate jerk, and his best friend Matze (David Kross), a fragile, kind-hearted soul who stutters under pressure. Since grade school, the two early-30-somethings have never left each other’s side—going through academia together, living as roommates, and pursuing the same real estate career, down to working across from each other at their office.
Today, Olli has been planning for them to go on a year-long intercontinental tour for them both. That’s until Matze has a meet-cute with a client named Rebecca (Janina Uhse) while showing her an apartment. Soon enough they become a couple, with Olli cringing at every occasion at Matze’s newfound cutesy joy and projecting his misogynistic worldview of relationships onto him.
Rebecca hosts a party at Matze and Olli’s apartment (??), which her stern boss (Thomas Heinze) shows up at (because who would invite their boss to a party). But at every turn, Olli undermines Rebecca, turning the attention about himself—from heckling people making toasts, playing a juvenile inside-joke card game involving Matze’s scat in public, etc. Matze, in turn, defends Olli’s behavior, gaslighting her, going, “He’s just being himself.”
Tired of having to put up with Olli’s b.s., Rebecca convinces Matze to move in with her, thus their apartment hunting throws a wedge into Olli’s travel plans. Olli sees this as a threat and thus begins a rivalry with Rebecca for custody of his best friend.
Picture Credit: Netflix
If you’re to do a buddy comedy about codependency, at least have your characters or comedy resemble any sort of believability. Writer-director Marco Petry rejects all that, opting to infuse his cast with relentless cruelty in each scene.
Olli is a detestable man-child, and Matze is too weak-willed to say otherwise. Much like their banter, their characterization is one-note but exceedingly pushed for shock value. Their friendship, frankly, seems more abusive than anything genuine, with Matze seeming like he’s struggling with unresolved childhood trauma that turns into Stockholm Syndrome at every enabling defense he makes for Olli. These characters are in their damn 30s, unbelievably too damn old to be this detached from reality. Everything they do is for Olli’s benefit, and once Rebecca enters the picture, he becomes borderline sociopathic. It’s a shame that Ullmann and Kross are fairly charismatic, and their upbeatness makes only a handful of moments land.
Rather than developing or dissecting their dynamic and growth, given their newfound circumstance, Petry aims for shock value, stringing the film between endless, unfunny slapstick. One of the most amusing aspects of My Best Friend, His Girlfriend, and Me, which also serves as an indicator of its own unoriginality, is its own poster, which is derived from the stock image meme. Each comedic sequence is an eternity, taking the most long-winded routes, cramming in every adolescent-oriented joke and slapstick it can, falling flat at each turn, leading you to increasingly dislike the characters even further. Even the most satisfying scene, where Matze and his friends shoot paintballs at Olli because he was the only one who hit Rebecca the first time, isn’t enough. Again, this was a slog. Thinking I was 30 minutes in, I looked up how much of the movie was remaining and was shocked that I was only 20 minutes in, screaming, “There’s over an hour left?!”
Picture Credit: Netflix
Early on, I had sympathy for Rebecca, who should’ve left Matze fairly early on by taking his side in her humiliation. However, she also becomes irritating, subsequently portrayed as an unjust partner, despite being the only reasonable character for an extended period. That speaks to the film’s bitter, misogynistic energy, as every female character is either presented as a commanding nag or manic pixie dream girl and no in-between. God forbid them to be reasonable or their partners be self-respecting enough to speak up for themselves and engage in proper communication.
I can’t say I have seen Petry’s prior work in Eat Pray Bark and Blame the Game, but now I’m compelled to avoid them like the plague. Reading further critical reception, I am confident to say My Best Friend, His Girlfriend, and Me falls in the same line of quality as his other features. These have to be some of the worst Netflix international originals on the platform, right next to 365 Days.
One top comment on Letterboxd for Blame the Game, paired with a half-star, commented, “People need to stop making movies just to make a movie. What even is this?” Man, I couldn’t agree more.
