Title: Vincent Wants To Sea

Opens: June 24, 2011

Al Capp, the creator of the comic strip “L’il Abner,” was extremely conservative politically. During the Vietnam War protests, when students took over Columbia University, smoking the dean’s cigars and sitting on the ledge outside his window, Capp sniffed: “The inmates are running the asylum.” Generally, that’s not a good idea, many of us would agree, but sometimes the residents of a institution for emotional problems can do more for one another than the staff. Think of how much better the nut-cases did when they were temporarily freed from the dictatorship of Nurse Ratched in Milos Forman’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” To prove the axiom once again, Raff Huettner directs principal actor Florian David Fitz’s screenplay “Vincent Wants to Sea” (German language, English subtitles), the German title being “Vincent will meer,” which is a pun for “Vincent wants more” and “Vincent Wants to Sea.” When three young people with diverse emotional problems free themselves at least for a while from a posh institution, embarking on a road trip that happily distracts them from their flaws, we see how much better these folks can do on their own without the supervision of a chain-smoking, though competent, therapist.

As you watch, you will be reminded at least a little of Til Schweiger’s “Barfuss,” in which a man working in a mental institution saves an inmate from suicide; but even more of “Niagara, Niagara,” in which an outsider and a woman suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome drive to Canada. And don’t forget Gregory Hines’s role in Gary Winick’s “The Tic Code”—wherein a ten-year-old boy who accepts his own Tourette’s syndrome teams up with a jazz saxophonist who does not.

The title character in Huettner’s comedy-drama has Tourette’s, which causes him to twist his head violently and, more embarrassing, to shout cuss words even when he’s at services for the funeral of his mother. His politician dad, Robert (Heino Ferch) drives Vincent (Florian David Fitz) to an institution against the 27-year-old’s will, where the therapist, Dr. Rose (Katharina Mueller-Elmau), advises that Tourette’s cannot be cured but that the facility can teach him how to control his tics. Young and eager to break out, he teams up with Alexander (Johannes Allmayer), his initially hostile obsessive-compulsive roommate and Marie (Karoline Herfurth), the resident anorectic. They steal the doctor’s car and go for quite the road trip across the Alps to the sea in Italy. As with most voyages, the journey is more important than the destination. Though nobody gets cured, the three have arguments, make up, and have a ball, especially in their efforts to escape Vincent’s dad who, together with the doc, track the trio in a BMW. At the same time in a subplot, dad and doctor have a series of interchanges that—again temporarily—sidetracks the ambitious man from his perfectionism and refusal to accept his son’s illness and the doctor from her strait-laced, institutional demeanor.

While the road trip is not unique—Hollywood clutters the screens with mostly slapstick versions of young people who get into trouble and are happier for it—”Vincent will meer” sports top performances all around, has a great balance of melodrama, comedy and sadness, and features picturesque Alpine filmmaking from Andreas Berger. The picture won audience favorite awards at several international film festivals.

Unrated. 96 minutes. (c) 2011 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online

Story – B+

Overall – B+