‘My Best Enemy,’ Directed by Wolfgang Murnberger (original) (raw)

Movie Review

A Boyhood Friendship Fractured by War

Moritz Bleibtreu, left, Georg Friedrich and Ursula Strauss make up a tense love triangle in the World War II drama “My Best Enemy.”Credit...Petro Domenigg/Sundance Selects

My Best Enemy

Directed by Wolfgang Murnberger

Comedy, Drama, War

Not Rated

1h 49m

Jan. 10, 2013

An awkward blend of anti-Semitic atrocities and identity-swapping absurdity, the World War II drama “My Best Enemy” struggles to find a convincing tone. Sidling around the violence with a plot that juggles class resentment, counterfeit art and a limp love triangle, the film wobbles between high-stakes adventure and high-tone caper.

Opening in Vienna in 1938, the story (adapted by the director, Wolfgang Murnberger, from a Paul Hengge novel) follows the closely linked fortunes of two childhood friends. Victor (Moritz Bleibtreu), the devil-may-care heir of a powerful Jewish gallery owner, is stunned when his best buddy, Rudi (Georg Friedrich), the gentile son of the family housekeeper, returns from a trip to Germany transformed by an SS uniform and the desire for Victor’s girlfriend. He also plans to confiscate a rare Michelangelo drawing that Hitler needs to woo Mussolini.

What follows is an unwieldy treasure hunt with more plot twists than tension. Yet as Rudi’s behavior grows increasingly despicable, a scene in which he and Victor, by then a concentration-camp inmate, swap uniforms is uncomfortably pleasurable. Watching Victor, in full Nazi regalia, wale on the groveling, striped-pajama-wearing Rudi raises deeply conflicted feelings that seem to belong in another film entirely. For that brief moment this breezy Holocaust drama cracks the door of a very dark room. Had it opened wider, we might not bemoan that a film so concerned with identity is unable to find its own.

Opens on Friday in Manhattan. Directed by Wolfgang Murnberger In German, with English subtitles 1 hour 46 minutes; not rated

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