PARADISE (2023)

PARADISE (2023)

Tagline: Nope.

(Sci-Fi, Action, Don't Waste Your Time Always Searching for Those Wasted Years) [R]

Note: This movie did not get a MPA rating, but came out on streaming services under the TV-MA rating which is essentially [R]. 

In this one, Max works for a company called AEON. His wife Elena supports him 100% but what AEON does is extremely controversial. They will let you sell years of your life to another person for money or to pay off debt. Consumers then pay large sums of money to add years to their life and Max is one of the company’s best salesmen convincing people he is selling hope. One night Max’s house burns down and the rent was so expensive they couldn’t afford to start over. As a result, Elena contemplates doing the only thing she can to collect the insurance money she and Max need. It would mean selling 40 years of her life. 

This movie does a great job of exploring how the more we try to escape mortality, the more things can go haywire when it comes to the price tags on that. Not just monetarily, but emotionally and in our souls. The contrast for Max where he goes from feeling like he’s doing the world a great service, to questioning everything actually mirrors what we see in real life from time to time. The film challenges us to ask what we would do faced with similar situations to the one that Max and Elena find themselves in and what we would do to continue not only our existence but the quality of that existence. 

I don’t know German, so the version I watched of this film is dubbed. Given that, I still think the performances are strong. Lisa-Marie Koroll (THE KIDS TURNED OUT FINE) is solid as Marie Theissen. She does a great job of keeping the audience guessing as to what her real thoughts and motives are. Marlene Tanczik is good as Elena. I also thought Corinna Kirchhoff crushed it. Kostja Ullmann (CHRISTMAS CROSSFIRE) is really good as Max. This was also a fantastic outing for Lorna Ishema as Kaya who didn’t get a ton of lines, but it feels like this movie was set up for a sequel, so I would expect her to return as the character. Probably the biggest notable actor is Numan Acar who plays Viktor. He is probably best known for SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME. 

The other things that are really good about this movie are the soundtrack. Not what I would have expected for a serious sci-fi flick. This is a pretty crazy concept that I think we have seen done maybe a few times in the past, but even though it feels like Elena and Max were given a complete story here, it also feels like this should have been an ongoing series rather than a movie. We really don’t get the neat little bow on top for anything outside of what happens to anyone outside of those two. 

Effects wise I think this could have been done a bit better. It seems like with all the tech AEON has, we would have seen some better tech introduced in other aspects of the show. We also never really get a good explanation for why Elena is put in the position she is decision-wise. Do you go to prison for not paying your rent in Germany in the future? Do they kill you? I think there were some real writing flaws here and that made this a little less enjoyable for me than it could have been. The execution overall is good though and the acting and dubbing is stellar. 

For those reasons, this movie lands at a 5 out of 7 for me. I don’t really think this was a downer, it more exposed the “real” character of the characters and I really like that bit of exploration. It comes across as very genuine. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF NEUESUPER AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.