One for the Road

Mark runs building sites in Berlin. Drinking is normal for him; at business dinners, on site, through Berlin nights, there is always a reason. One night, trying to move his car out of a no parking zone, he is stopped and loses his licence. To get it back he has to attend an alcohol counselling programme. There he meets Nadine and the two make a bet. Markus Goller directs. Frederick Lau plays Mark and Nora Tschirner plays Nadine. The first half runs in the shape of comedy; the meetings, the people at them and Mark's refusal to take the matter seriously are used as comic material. In the second half the tone changes. Mark realises he cannot stop, and the narrative leaves comedy; that transition is the film's real structure. The subject is the invisibility of dependence: Mark does his job, has friends, and from outside nothing looks wrong. Berlin nightlife and the construction industry are given in detail and a connection is made between the two worlds. Its limit is the tone of the second half; when the narrative turns serious it becomes formulaic and the ending is too corrective. Who it is for: viewers who like contemporary German cinema and drama about addiction. Who it is not for: the humour of the first half does not sit with the second, it is long, and the narrative is predictable.