Critic Reviews

German director Andreas Dresen has made an oddly buoyant little film about loneliness: Part Sex in der City, part Dogme doldrums, Summer in Berlin is most affecting as a character study of two women in their late thirties.

The low-key realism is so meticulously maintained that Summer in Berlin feels somewhat trivial. There is nothing larger here than meets the eye. It is "Sex and the City" on a stringent budget with fewer characters.

Nothing much is original in this soggy tale of two German women whose friendship persists despite adversity and their own bad choices.

The modest splash made by Andreas Dresen's Dogme-styled 2002 drama "Grill Point" raised expectations his projects since haven't quite met, including the new Summer in Berlin.

The result is entertaining but hardly memorable.

The movie tends to wander between story lines and characters without any real sense of purpose.