The Centre of My World [Die Mitte der Welt] **** (2016, Louis Hofmann, Sabine Timoteo, Jannik Schümann, Ada Philine Stappenbeck) – Classic Movie Review 13,213

The enticing 2016 gay romantic drama film The Centre of My World [Die Mitte der Welt] is based on a best-selling novel by Andreas Steinhöfel, and stars Louis Hofmann as sweet and sensitive 17-year-old German boy Phil. 

Writer/ director Jakob M Erwa’s enticing 2016 gay coming-of-age romantic drama film The Centre of My World [Die Mitte der Welt] is based on the 1998 best-selling young adult novel The Center of the World by Andreas Steinhöfel, and stars Louis Hofmann as a sweet, soft and sensitive teenager, the 17-year-old German boy Phil.

He comes back from a summer camp and returns to the old family mansion on the outskirts of town called Visible where he lives with his mother Glass (Sabine Timoteo) and his twin sister Dianne (Ada Philine Stappenbeck), deeply troubled women who apparently do not talk to each other anymore.

After spending the last days of his summer holidays with his best friend Kat (Svenja Jung) to escape his family, Phil goes back to school and starts to follow with his feelings towards his stunning looking, mysterious new classmate Nicholas (Jannik Schümann). Nicholas gives him the come-on, and they are soon caught up in a passionate love affair, plunging Phil into an emotional turmoil.

Louis Hofmann is tremendous as bright and beautiful young Phil in this lovely, warm, imaginatively realised, deeply haunting coming-of-age film. It is fresh and original, effectively avoiding all the usual themes and cliches. It flashes back and forward effortlessly, between the present day and the characters’ young selves (Bendix Hansen as little Phil, Sarah Fuhrer as little Dianne). There’s no sense of strain anywhere in the handling or the drama.

Sabine Timoteo is also excellent as the boy’s troubled mother Glass, a woman well beyond the edge. With a mother and sister (Ada Philine Stappenbeck as Dianne) like this, you wouldn’t think Phil would be growing up okay, but Phil has his head screwed on the right way. Timoteo has a difficult task to make the mother sympathetic, but she does. Stappenbeck has a similar uphill task, but somehow she doesn’t. Schümann doesn’t have to do much more than look cute, but he does it real well.

The cast are Louis Hofmann as Phil, Sabine Timoteo as Glass, Jannik Schümann as Nicholas, Ada Philine Stappenbeck as Dianne, Svenja Jung as Kat, Sascha Alexander Geršak as Michael, Inka Friedrich as Tereza, Nina Proll as Pascal, Thomas Goritzki as teacher Herr Hänel, Clemens Rehbein as Kyle, Bendix Hansen as little Phil, Sarah Fuhrer as little Dianne.

The film premiered at the Munich International Film festival on 26 June 2016 and was then screened at the Moscow International Film Festival, where it caused controversy for its non-traditional portrayal of sexual relationships between teenagers. It was released in Germany on 10 November 2016.

Jannik Schümann (born 22 July 1992).

Cast: Bendix Hansen as little Phil, Sarah Fuhrer as little Dianne, Louis Hofmann as Phil – Sabine Timoteo: Glass – Ada Philine Stappenbeck: Dianne – Inka Friedrich: Tereza – Svenja Jung: Kat – Clemens Rehbein: Kyle – Thomas Goritzki: Lehrer Händel – Jannik Schümann: Nicholas – Manuel Schmitz: Klein Nicholas – Nina Proll: Pascal – Sascha Alexander Gersak: Michael – Milena Cestao Kolbowski: Kora – Can Bulut: Jan – Christian Skibinski: Passant – Aurélie Thépaut: Lehrerin

Director: Jakob M Erwa

Writers: Andreas Steinhöfel, Jakob M Erwa

Music: Paul Gallister

Producers: Boris Schönfelder, Bernhard zu Castell, Jakob M. Erwa, Mathias Forberg, Viktoria Salcher

Production: Neue Schönhauser Filmproduktion, Prisma Film, Universum Film, mojo:pictures, WDR, BR, ARTE, ORF Distribution: TLA Releasing, Constantin-Film, Universum Film, ARTE, Outplay.

Louis Hofmann (born 3 June 1997)

Louis Hofmann stars as Cioma Schönhaus in The Forger (2022).

Jannik Schümann (born 22 July 1992).

German actor Jannik Schümann (born 22 July 1992) has received three Jupiter Awards for Best Actor, for his role of Danny in Close to the Horizon (2020), 9 Days Awake (2021), and the role of Franz Joseph I in Sisi (2022).

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2023, he gave a speech in the German Parliament commemorating the LGBTQ victims of the Nazi regime for the first time in Germany’s history.

Schümann lives with his partner Felix Kruck in Berlin. They announced their engagement on 3 March 2024.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,213

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