‘Obhut’ review: A sibling relationship is tested in sensitive German debut

Dir: Veronika Hafner. Germany. 2025. 107mins

Twenty-something pupil Lukas (Jonas Holdenrieder) is near his older sister Mara (Luise Heyer) and is adored by her two younger kids. Then Lukas drops a bombshell, confiding in Mara that he’s a paedophile who’s drawn to very younger women. Mara struggles to not condemn him outright, however seems at him with new, looking out eyes that may’t fairly see previous his confession. Veronika Hafner’s Munich-set debut movie handles its hot-button themes with restraint and, for probably the most half, sensitivity, peeling away the instinctive revulsion that surrounds Lukas’s inclinations to disclose a pitiable particular person reasonably than a monster. 

 Performances are nuanced and satisfyingly complicated

Obhut – the title interprets as custody, guardianship or care – screens in Hamburg following its premiere in Zurich competitors. It’s an uncomfortable drama that questions the behaviour of Mara in addition to that of Lukas, telling the story from the viewpoints of each siblings. There are thematic similarities with Sarah Miro Fischer’s Berlinale Panorama premiere, The Good Sister: each cope with sibling relationships and examined loyalties following a revelation in regards to the brother. However resistance to paedophilia as a theme, plus the movie’s stable however formally typical strategy, may imply that Obhut might battle to search out a lot traction theatrically, exterior of German-language territories.

Lukas is aware of what he’s, and he additionally is aware of that it’s flawed. He’s in remedy to sort out his urges and has set himself sure boundaries that can’t be transgressed. He retains his affectionate niece at a distance and appears visibly uncomfortable when she embraces him; he’s not drawn to her, however he’s terrified that sooner or later he is likely to be. Elsewhere, he avidly watches a pre-teen influencer’s content material – he tells himself that it’s innocent however a scene in direction of the tip of the movie emphasises, emphatically, the queasiness of a grown man mooning over a baby’s YouTube channel.

Mara’s actions can be seen as morally ambiguous. She is well-intentioned, for instance, when she units up a surveillance digital camera within the locker room of the juvenile boys soccer staff that Lukas coaches. However in assuaging her personal doubts about her brother, she invades the privateness of a gaggle of youngsters. She feels that she is doing her responsibility as a co-parent when she confides in her ex-husband however, in doing so, she betrays her brother’s belief and units in movement a series of damaging occasions. 

The movie walks one thing of a tonal tightrope. It doesn’t require us to sympathise totally with Lukas however asks that we at the very least don’t reject him out of hand. However the mental stability isn’t all the time matched by the filmmaking. There are jarring moments wherein the sound design and rating appear higher suited to an overwrought style film than to an intimate home drama.

Fortuitously, the performances are nuanced and satisfyingly complicated. As Lukas, Holdenrieder creates a personality at battle with himself, his self-loathing and ache balanced towards a barely petulant undercurrent of victimhood. And Mara, together with her glued-on smile that doesn’t fairly masks her panic and uncertainty, is a loving sister and mom, but in addition an overbearing and controlling presence within the lives of her relations. However for all this, the movie finds a closing observe of hope for a future reconciliation between brother and sister.