Princess and the Warrior

A cumbrous and somewhat plodding third film from talented German upstart Tom Tykwer (director of 1999's frantic Run Lola Run), The Princess and the Warrior is ultimately as schizophrenic as some of the characters who inhabit the psychiatric ward in which much of the film's action takes place. Is it a Jungian treatise on the meaningful coincidences that comprise people's seemingly random lives? This seems to be Tykwer's thesis, but it is somewhat contaminated by the film's topical overreach, as it tries to be equal parts heist movie, love story, sordid family drama, supernatural "thriller" (in only the most attenuated sense), coming of age fable, etc. It's as if Princess is a filmic manifestation of the compound-noun phenomenon of German itself, wherein new words are formed simply by stringing nouns together. On the positive side, Franka Potente (Lola in Lola) is refreshingly real and intriguing to watch, and Benno Fürmann is riveting as he does a young-Brando slow burn. Unfortunately, Tykwer has to contrive so much in service of the overly complex plot that it distracts heavily from these fine performances.