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Everyone Else is More Fun Than This Couple

A young German couple is on vacation in Sardinia and our greatest predicament is deciding which one of them we like less, but not in a good way. It's not fun disliking them, which would be fine, it's laborious.

Chris (Lars Eidinger) and Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr) are annoying for different reasons. He is a lazy architect who could be a great success if he put any effort into it. Actually, he puts effort into nothing that we can see. She is moody, and with him for no apparent reason.

Director Maren Ade (hope that is pronounced differently than it reads) has fashioned something that can't decide what it wants to be. At first it is a light sort of comedy with an undertone of something serious possible coming into view later. Forget about comedy; that disappears almost immediately. Then it veers into a relationship tale of a woman wanting more than she is getting from her man. That quickly becomes tiresome and goes similarly nowhere.

The only borderline mystery is why Chris is avoiding his neighbor, Hans (Hans-Jochen Wagner). Chris goes so far as to grab Gitti and run away from the sound of Hans, cowering behind a house. Finally, we might have someone of interest making an appearance. Maybe he'll be a crazed killer, an annoying dirtbag or something that can hold our attention and pique our curiosity. Nope. He's the most normal one of the bunch.

At this point all we can do is scratch our collective heads and wonder what the point of the exercise was. If there was one, I missed it. I suggest that you miss it entirely.