I really didn't know what to expect from this. I sought it out before I am a huge fan of Daniel Bruhl and find him endlessly charming and watchable in everything I've seen him in (which started with Rush). He did not disappoint here. It's a quiet, but layered performance. I expected the film to be a comedy but instead it's a very poignant drama, with some humor. Overall, the performances definitely make this gem worth it.

The performances in "Good Bye Lenin!" are very good by the entire cast, and this is an interesting angle for a German film about the changes in East Berlin after the fall of the Soviet Union. It's two stories, really, the overall one being about a tight-knit family from East Berlin, especially the devotion of a young man for his mother. The family appeared to be much better off than many others in East Berlin before 1980 – about 10 years before the Berlin Wall came down. We don't see the father, a doctor who supposedly abandoned his family and fled the Iron Curtain. The Mutter, played by Katrin Sass, has a mental breakdown. After she is returned home and recovered, she begins devoting her time to all things Soviet as a loyal citizen of the state. Ten years pass, and the devoted son, Alex (played by Daniel Bruhl) is bored with life. The picture we see is one of a great laxity among the populace. It's October 1989, and the people are restless, the economy is in shambles, and the Soviet leaders no longer have the heavy hands to control the people. Mutter suffers a heart attack, just as she sees Alex being taken away by a couple of East German Police where he had been walking in a throng of protesters. The film isn't billed as a comedy, but it has some comedy in it. After eight months, Mutter comes out of her coma. But she isn't to be startled or she could suffer a relapse and die. She isn't given that much of a chance as is. Alex moves her back to their apartment. They have to restore it with the old furnishings. He tries to make things as they were eight months earlier, because all of the changes that have happened would be sure to shock her. The rest of the film shows the efforts, orchestrated by Alex, to have Mutter still think she's living under the shadow of her bellowed Lenin. But how long can he keep her from finding the truth? The last quarter of the film is the best part. The comedy is very good here, the love of family shines through with the characters, and the truth finally comes out, with Mutter dying happily. The film is rated R for nudity and some of the language.

I watched this in my German Cinema class, and I very much enjoyed it. The cast members were all well-suited to their roles, the plot was engaging, and the film editing was beautiful. Good Bye Lenin! is a tragicomedy which takes place mostly in East Berlin in 1989 and 1990. It opens with Sigmund Jähn's flight into space, and the subsequent televised "wedding" of the German and Soviet children's television characters Sandmann and Mascha. Through the entire film, space is a recurring theme. As a child, Alex shoots a rocket "into space as the second German in space." As Christiane lies comatose in the hospital, Alex compares her to a satellite circling around "our small planet and our still smaller republic." Alex, an East German, also meets and falls in love with a Russian nurse named Lara. This may be a parallel for Sandmann and Mascha. After the fall of the wall, Alex gets a job where he installs TV satellite dishes with Denis. In East Germany, space was for science; after the wall came down, Alex sells space for consumption and entertainment. Other references to space: Denis shows Alex his home film service ad, based on 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Interestingly, Good Bye Lenin! was finished in the year 2001, but only available beginning in 2003.) When Christiane has her second heart attack, Alex meets Sigmund Jähn in person, but he is a simple Taxi driver. In the GDR that Alex creates for his mother, Sigmund Jähn, the first German in space, becomes the chancellor. He and his work are symbols for the best of the GDR—what, in Alex's mind, it could and should have been. The ideals of freedom, unity, and hope of a better society marked by fairness, peace, and advancement find embodiment in Sigmund Jähn and his trip to space. Goodbye Lenin! offers plenty of humorous moments, despite its tragic aspects. A lot of the humor is cultural, and makes sense only if the viewer has some understanding of East/West German history and culture. Still, I would recommend this movie to English speakers and German speakers alike.

Well, I must say I had no idea that life behind the wall during East Germany's existence was so restrictive. No Western companies allowed, (Coca Cola, etc) rubbish TV, mandatory conformation and if you tried to escape this hellhole, you were shot on sight. It almost makes North Korea sound appealing. Thank goodness all that is behind us... mind you, to be a complete nation again they had to tolerate David Hasselhoff's attempt at singing, which is almost enough to make you want to rebuild the structure just to keep the damn fool out...Into this situation are thrown a mother and her two teenage children, who she's raised to be devoted to the ethics and beliefs of the East. Her husband has long since fled to the cosseted bosom of the West, leaving her to raise the kids alone. This was just before the wall was about to collapse though, so she's holding onto a failing ideology. Just before the big event however, she suffers from a massive heart attack which puts her in a long coma, forcing her to miss Germany's reunification and subsequent corruption of her children by outside influences(!) When she wakes up months later, her son is informed by her doctor that any shock could kill her, and finding out the world as she knew it has changed would certainly fall into that category. So he is forced to begin an elaborate facade, involving VCRs, old clothes and pickles. Sounds complicated? Well, it is.It's also very moving, funny and poignant as the ever-inventive screenplay keeps throwing up new problems for the ever-industrious son to navigate, and the way he enlists the help of those around him and his utilisation of ancient products scavenged from the skip is a pleasure to behold. The true heart of the film though, is in the relationship between the stricken mother and her offspring, and through their efforts at keeping her breathing which disrupts their everyday lives, you know they truly love her. Even when she reveals the sorry truth about her husband's departure late on, they still forgive her with unconditional love. My favourite part is just before she passes on, she discovers the ruse... but frankly, she doesn't care. Watching the children she loves going to all this trouble to preserve her life is better than any send-off... you can tell by the look in her eyes.Beautiful. 7/10