Faraway

Zeynep is in her forties and carries everything. At home there is her husband, her daughter and her mother in law; none of them sees the work she does. Her mother dies. After the funeral she learns her mother left her something: a small house on an island in Croatia. Zeynep gets in the car without telling anyone and goes. When she arrives there is someone in the house. Josip looks after it and lives there; he thought it was going to be sold. The two have to stay in the same house. Meanwhile her family is looking for her and her daughter's wedding is coming. Vanessa Jopp directs. Naomi Krauss plays Zeynep and Goran Bogdan plays Josip; Adnan Maral and Bahar Balci are in the cast. It is a German production. It was made for Netflix and takes the life of a Turkish family in Germany as its direct subject. The matter it treats is unseen labour; the work Zeynep does is noticed only once she is gone. The narrative does not offer escape as a solution; the matter of the house and the matter of the family proceed together. The daughter's wedding is the second axis and the difference between two generations shows there. The Croatian sections are used as landscape and the register lightens. Its limit is shape; the romance is predictable and the resolution comes easily. Another limit is balance; the passage between the serious matter and the holiday comedy does not always hold. Who it is for: viewers who like German romantic comedy and family drama. Who it is not for: it is predictable, the conflict softened, and the ending too tidy.