A Coffee In Berlin (2014) - Jan Ole Gerster

Jan Ole Gerster's directorial debut, A Coffee in Berlin, presents a day in the life of Niko, a twenty-something aimless man who recently dropped out of college. A Coffee in Berlin would be a nice bedside companion to Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, though it feels far more like a series of vignettes where Niko bounces around meeting different people.  These characters range from a very funny encounter with a psychiatrist, who Niko is ordered to visit, to a dramatic scene where Niko meets a grandmother who personifies loneliness.  A Coffee in Berlin has a very whimsical spirit running through its core, with laughs of plenty, but the directors more dramatic intentions are very clear.  Niko is a seriously flawed character who is perhaps a little too mopey, but the way Gerster's script slowly reveals his soul and past with absolutely no exposition is always impressive.  The grandmother sequence is very important example of this in the film because Niko shows true empathy for this woman, something we hadn't seen from him up until this point.  At its heart, it's similar to many films of its ilk, a story about ones inability to find a place in society.  Visually assured, Jan Ole Gerster's A Coffee in Berlin is a well constructed story with mostly strong characters and a solid emotional core.

---