Agnes and His Brothers

Roehler mixes cheap sex humor, existential darkness, buffoonish satire and profound tenderness in almost classic proportions. Maybe this is too uneven to be a masterpiece, but it's somewhere close.

Roehler aims scattershot barbs at so many targets, from political hypocrisy to suburban entitlement, that he often misses. But whenever he takes the time to line up his toxic arrows, usually with the help of a compellingly squirmy Bleibtreu, he hits the bull's-eye.

This scathing study of middle-class angst plays like a cross between Buñuel and Almodovar, but the satire never achieves liftoff despite the actors' best efforts.

The results isn't especially engaging, despite a quietly charismatic performance by Weiss, a relative newcomer who holds his own against far more experienced actors.

A Teutonic version of "American Beauty" with added dysfunctionality.

Oskar Roehler's serio-comedy Agnes And His Brothers tries to make some incisive points about the damage wrought by society's sexual hang-ups, but though Roehler throws three different characters at the subject, only one halfway sticks.

The title's pointedly incorrect pronoun is typical of the film's obtuse childishness.