Pierre Monnard’s Platzspitzbaby is based on the bestselling 2013 novel of the same name by Michelle Halbheer and Franziska K. Müller. Platzspitzbaby follows eleven-year-old Mia and her drug-addicted mother Sandrine after the closure of the open drug scene in Zurich. The family of two moves from the city to a more rural town but Sandrine’s drug addiction follows them wherever they go. Mia flees into her own fantasy world with an imaginary friend that helps her cope with her mother’s addiction. Mia soon makes friends with the rebellious Lola and her group of friends and decides to stand up for herself against her demanding mother.

Platzspitzbaby is inspired by true events that occurred in the late ’80s in a small park behind the main station in Zurich, Switzerland. Directly behind the federal state museum was the infamous hotspot for drug addicts and drug dealers. It was called the Platzspitz. The misery of the open drug scene with more than 3000 people gathering there daily was frowned upon by the public and neighboring countries which led to a clearance of the Platzspitz in early 1992. The drug scene had to relocate to the surrounding and less public areas instead. But even those places were eventually closed down by the national crackdown on drugs in 1995. This is where the story of Platzspitzbaby picks up.

Slight spoilers ahead.

Mia, played by Luna Mwezi, is the central character of this film and the story is told entirely through her perspective. Although her performance wasn’t always solid and convincing enough to carry the entire film, it was still impressive to watch her portray a character that’s basically the same age as she is. I would have preferred if her character wasn’t written in such a stiff emotional fashion. Mia basically shifts between sad, angry and disappointed, with the occasional glimpse of hope. That wouldn’t be much of a problem if the character’s moments weren’t repeated over and over again without Mia taking anything away from them. Mia never really becomes an active character, she is always just reacting to other characters’ action and when she finally does something on her own, it is limited to her telling her mom she wants to go home.

Not far into the film, we realize that Luna Mwezi is the best performer out of the otherwise lackluster cast. Sarah Spale’s Sandrine was comically bad at times and did not manage to immerse me into the story at all. I always saw the actress rather than the character on the screen, which really didn’t help. The same goes for Anouk Petri’s Lola.

The plot is not short of clichés and tropes clearly inspired by Hollywood films with a similar subject matter. This is yet another attempt of Swiss cinema trying to replicate Hollywood with a Swiss setting. All the plot points ranging from proving yourself to fit in by doing something crazy to being late for a school performance felt incredibly forced and resulted in the direction becoming muddled and unfocused. This problem becomes even more apparent in amateurish camera work. There are several moments in which the camera goes from handheld to static and back to handheld for no reason. Usually, a change in camera movement is motivated by what’s going on in the scene, but that was not the case in Platzspitzbaby and as it continued to happen it became increasingly frustrating to witness such poor direction. I haven’t even mentioned to the terribly inconsistent imaginary friend that pops up whenever convenient, only to over visualize Mia’s struggle.

Should you see this movie? The film is clearly intended to be watched by a Swiss audience that hasn’t seen a lot of similar movies produced in Hollywood. I’d recommend skipping this one, but if you’re interested in the subject matter Requiem of a Dream is a great alternative.

★★☆☆☆

Platzspitzbaby has a strong performance by the lead Luna Mwezi in an otherwise underwhelming Hollywood inspired drug addict story that spends to much time in cliché subplots and adds a weird singing imaginary side character for no plausible reason.

Swiss Release Date: 16.01.2020

Film data: Director: Pierre Monnard - Writers: Michelle Halbheer, André Küttel - Cast: Sarah Spale, Luna Mwezi, Jerry Hoffmann, Micheal Schertenleib, Jorik Wenger - 2020 - Switzerland - 98 min - C-Films AG

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