Fatherland

Grade: C-

After living just outside Auschwitz in The Zone of Interest, Sandra Hüller is in post-Holocaust times in Fatherland. It’s very short, and to its credit, doesn’t feel any longer than its 82 minutes. The black-and white is gorgeous. I’m always a sucker for seeing characters in a B&W movie smoke at each other, with their cigarettes and cigars. Otherwise, it’s dreadfully boring, I got so little out of it, and I’m relieved to see that I’m not alone on this. Some of my favorite critics, who usually always have a lot to say, admitted to struggling to find what to say.

Hüller, who will be remembered as one of 2026’s most prolific multitasking actors, plays the daughter of a German novelist, who is back in his hometown to accept an award in 1949 Frankfurt. The film is presenting us with two ideas: the ongoing political turmoil and a familial relationship. I couldn’t connect to either one, and I wasn’t sure which angle it was really about. Fatherland is so quiet and consistently underplayed, that I couldn’t care, and I barely felt like I saw a movie. It felt incomplete, but I wasn’t wanting any more.

Director Paweł Pawlikowski was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for his Cold War. I have a “user error” story about that film that was both embarrassing and an interesting exercise. I watched all but the last 15 minutes of it with no subtitles. I didn’t think there were subtitles, and we were either supposed to take it at face value, or there would eventually be English. I just didn’t turn them on. Still, though, I was able to appreciate a surprising amount—and somehow, I liked it better than Fatherland, of which I read every word that was spoken. Cold War managed to communicate enough through its characters, situations, and filmmaking prowess that it overrode my lacking the most important ingredient. I passed it with a B-.

Let’s say, for example, there’s a movie I don’t like with a runtime of 100 minutes. I have a running joke with myself, where, about 80 minutes in, I might think “I hope it ends now, and the credits are 20 minutes long.” I was simultaneously glad Fatherland was over and amazed that there weren’t just one or two more scenes. I got those longer-than-expected credits I often wish for.

In the next two days, I’ll see Johnny Depp play one of the most iconic characters in all of literature, a Nicholas Hoult-led crime caper from the director of The Fall Guy, a drama about grief from the directors of Ghostlight, and Maika Monroe do an other-side-of-the-pond version of the Patrick Bateman thing. Even if I don’t enjoy all four, I can’t imagine them being as hollow and lifeless as Fatherland. They will at least make me feel something. There are movies that live, breathe, and stir up emotions. And then there’s Fatherland.

Grade: C-