Goodbye Berlin

Goodbye Berlin (Tschick, 2016) — watch this German road-movie online on iFILM. Director Fatih Akin adapted Wolfgang Herrndorf's beloved novel into 93 minutes of hot asphalt, bad decisions and one very unreliable Lada.

Maik is fourteen, invisible at school, and not invited to the only party that matters. Tschick shows up one morning — new in class, odd, and carrying a stolen car with a tank full of gas and no plan whatsoever. Their destination is a place called Walachia that Maik has never heard of. The journey turns out to be the point. Tristan Göbel and Anand Batbileg play the pair with an awkward, entirely believable chemistry, and Mercedes Müller turns up along the way as a third outcast who fits right in.

What Akin catches isn't teenage rebellion — it's the specific loneliness of being fourteen and invisible, and the unlikely relief of finding one person who doesn't mind. Stream Goodbye Berlin (2016) online on iFILM.