Netflix’s latest German dystopia is certainly no paradisiac dream
Combining elements of 2011’s In Time and 2006’s Children of Men, Paradise is a moody film armed with a great premise that it doesn’t do enough with. The potential is ripe for the taking but instead, this German dystopian thriller is slow, ponderous and annoyingly ambiguous.
The film itself takes around 40 minutes to actually get going, with a lot of worldbuilding and explanation thrown in to make sense of this near-future world. Aeon is a company promising that you can “Donate your time and start a new life.” Essentially, you give away your years of life in exchange for a lucrative cash sum. Those years can then be converted to a de-aging serum that is used for matching donors, allowing that person to de-age. Conversely, the donor then ages rapidly, losing the said number of years pledged but armed with extra cash.
Naturally, with any controversial procedure like this, there are some people against this. A terrorist group called Adam Organisation rise up, believing that Aeon is exploiting another system to allow the rich to get richer and the poor to eke out a (much shorter) living.
However, the big moral implications are conveniently side-stepped and never really mentioned. Midway through the film there’s a black market doctor who uses the serum out the back of his van. How? Where did he get it from? On that same note, despite the warning for this only being used for those over 18, what if you take too many years and actually turn someone into a baby? What if they blink out of existence completely? How are the donors determined? There are so many questions here and Paradise opts to ignore all of them to focus on a far simpler set-up instead.
At the center of this world is Max, an Aeon employee who’s one of the company’s rising stars. However, when his apartment burns down one night, and the insurance refuses to pay out citing negligence, Max immediately finds himself thrust into 2.5 million euros worth of debt.
Unfortunately, his wife Elena is forced to give up 38 years of her life to pay this off. Max is livid, demanding justice – and his wife’s life back. This immediately puts him on a collision course with the CEO of Aeon, Sophie Theissen.
The film is slow for the most part, drinking in the setting with a muted palette of dull greys and blues. The narrative itself is okay, but unfortunately just as you expect the story to pick up, it instead sticks to this humdrum, lackadaisical feel of never really being in a hurry to tell its story. Unfortunately, this has the adverse effect of causing you to think over numerous world-building issues and more of those aforementioned questions raised earlier in this review.
There’s also a subplot involving an investigator called Nowak and Sophie’s bodyguard that doesn’t really go anywhere, while the world itself feels surprisingly small, despite the cataclysmic events that we’re playing with here.
The middle portion of the film moves the action from Berlin across to Lithuania, and it actually has the adverse effect of cheapening the picture, with lots more interior shots and a story that struggles to mesh together this tale of justice for Max and Elena, with the larger Adam Organisation terrorists who want to stop Aeon no matter the cost. I won’t spoil too much here but the ending is left frustratingly open surrounding certain characters and what happens next.
Thematically, Paradise does touch on ideas like class, age and social status but there’s never any nuance here. In fact, a couple of characters completely flip on their perceived moral standing after a simple confrontation late on, which feels odd and incredibly jarring.
By contrast, the film’s antagonists are one-note and lack any sort of depth. They’re just evil because the plot calls for it. Of course, expect all the usual clichés in here too, and you’ll see the “twist” involving Max and Elena’s predicament coming a mile off.
While Paradise isn’t a bad film per-se, it takes ideas from superior movies and meshes them together into a far less competent and more mediocre flick. The execution is lacking with this one, but with a few more script rewrites and a tighter pacing, this could have been a winner. Instead, this is a 2 hour time-sink that doesn’t really reward you for that effort.
Read More: Paradise Ending Explained
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Verdict - 5.5/10
5.5/10
My only complaint is they didn’t even touch on how the age-transferring process works. I get it, if they did then people would be tearing apart the science, however they didn’t even mention it. That one thing I was interested to at least hear something.
My main concern with this film is how cold Elena was the whole time, you hoped there was character development or reasoning to show why shes so terrible but she starts out leaving her husband out of shame at the drop of a hat and then bails at the end for another guy and a new baby. Also doesnt tell him she was pregnant or took out a crazy loan for an apartment even though max is the top salesman for a massive company.
It would have been a better ending if it was max’s baby at least with another guy but thers no indicaitons
I can’t disagree more. I think it is down to background. If you like science and maths. I think the film is fantastic. Most of the issues and questions you are asking, are answered during the film they are not evident. Follow the logic and get into the Rabbit hole and you’ll see that the answer is hitting you in the face.
In fact that is what makes this a brilliant cinematographic experience. The film is written in such a way that, like science some of the most interesting results occur in the boundary of the issue and not in the middle of it. The film does not conform with the typical action film. It is a good science fiction film. There is really one how that I am a bit disappointed they didn’t did further, but won’t say as it will likely spoil nthe film for those wanting to watch it.
r/woooosh