Looking for Simon [Auf der Suche] *** (2011, Corinna Harfouch, Nico Rogner, Mehdi Dehbi, Valérie Leroy, Trystan Pütter, Mireille Perrier) – Classic Movie Review 13,698

Corinna Harfouch plays a mother looking for her missing doctor son who enlists the help of his ex-boyfriend (Nico Rogner), in the admirable, worthwhile 2011 German drama film Looking for Simon [Auf der Suche]. 

Handle with care writer/ director Jan Krüger’s engrossing but bleak, grim and super-gloomy 2011 German mystery drama film Looking for Simon [Auf der Suche]. It may be a total downer, but it is hauntingly atmospheric and very capably done, with two extremely strong, entirely credible, fully fleshed central performances.

Do not come here looking for cheer. The story never even once seems like it has going to have a happy ending, or that the characters will be let off the awful hook they find themselves impaled on. There’s not an ounce of sentimentality or hope either.

Simon, a young gay German doctor has swapped his own country for France and lives and works in Marseille, but he has gone missing for a week and his apartment is empty. His mother Valérie (Corinna Harfouch) is distraught and desperate so she turns to Simon’s former boyfriend Jens (Nico Rogner) to ask him to come from Berlin to Marseille to help her find her son.

The two have met before, but Valérie wasn’t very nice to Jens, so understandably they do not get on at all well. Jens is sullen and surly, but he gets involved in trying to unravel the mystery, while the usually capable Valérie is quietly useless and helpless, utterly numbed.

It could be a thriller, and it could be a good one, but instead it is a character study, and yes a good one as cultures and tastes collide quite involvingly. The film is a bit of a slow burn, but it is engrossing and quietly impressive. It is a small, simple, intimate film, with Pinteresque pauses and great attention to detail, all anguished looks and sullen glances.

The two main performances are sure, certain and subtle, and really quite tremendous. Their roles are subtly written too. Their characters are none too likeable, so the actors can’t play for sympathy too much. An anti-chemistry is set up between the characters, like Steptoe and Son without the laughs. Nothing is over-done, too soft or too loud, it is pitch perfect. Trystan Pütter plays Simon in flashbacks. 

The story has affinities to Missing, (1982), in which a father and daughter-in-law are searching for a missing son.

Release date: June 24, 2011 (US). It premiered at the Frameline Film Festival.

Runtime: 90 minutes.

Cert: PG.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,698

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