Summary
Forget rom-coms with beautiful twenty-somethings full of passion and charm. Please give me one with fifty-somethings with plenty of crow’s feet, and when you get to that final romantic cliche, the one running leans over to catch their breath because of decades of virtually zero cardio. That’s what you have in Faraway, a funny and sweet romantic comedy about people of a certain age.
Directed by Vanessa Jopp, we review the 2023 Netflix film Faraway, which does not contain spoilers.
Romantic comedies involving anyone over 40 years old are in short supply nowadays. Sure, you can have your At Midnight with two beautiful, young twenty-somethings trying to balance love and their professional lives. You can even have Yours or Mine with your beautiful movie stars who look younger than their age and can still resume their fashion model careers by walking down a runway this Spring. Give me two fifty-year-olds with distinguished crow’s feet, plenty of grey hair, and some good old-fashioned dad bods trying to find someone to turn the other page on a new chapter in their existential crisis-filled lives.
The German Netflix film Faraway fills that void.
Faraway Review and Plot Summary
Faraway follows a middle-aged woman, Zeynep (Naomi Krauss), who is at a crossroads in life. She is married to Llyas (Adnan Maral), who runs her family’s restaurant. They have a teenage daughter, Fia (Bahar Balci), who is going through her rebellious teenage years and is finding herself. So, like mother like daughter, Zeynep is going through an existential crisis. Or, in layman’s terms, a bit of a midlife crisis. Her mother has died. When she attends the funeral, she panics when giving the eulogy because her husband has not arrived yet with the heartfelt words she wrote. When Zeynep arrives at the restaurant, Llyas is laughing and flirting with a sous chef he hired.
This pushes Zeynep over the edge. Luckily, the day before, she was told her mother had left her a vacation home in Croatia, right on the water. She leaves Munich, and when she arrives late at night, she finds a middle-aged, Judd Apatow-looking fella sleeping beside her. His name is Josip (Goran Bogdan), and he is the former owner of the home, a property that has been in his family for generations. Zeynep’s mother told Josip he could stay there as long as he wanted. At this point, it has been for 15 years until someone shows up, which is today.
Under the direction of The Space Between the Lines director Vanessa Jopp, working with a script from Jane Ainscough, Faraway is a very funny and sweet German farce of people of a certain age. The script leans into the agism component. That’s adorable. Notably the performance of Krauss, who shows a real knack for comedy and is unafraid to act her age. Or, for that matter, show her age.
Whether it’s, as Bogdan’s Josip puts it, strapping on a scuba suit to wear underneath her clothes or thirsting over a man she had no idea was half her age, she is a delight here. Even a scene that involves a classic rom-com trope has a refreshing spin. When she runs after the object of her affection, she needs a moment to catch her breath, showing her age and the lack of cardio she has to incorporate into her life. When was the last time you saw any actress brave enough to show and embrace imperfections? That’s a brave thing for any actress.
Is the 2023 movie Faraway good?
Faraway may have some situations that you might say would never happen. And if they did, it would end the story immediately. However, sometimes we have to embrace some flaws to enjoy a good story.
Just like any relationship.
What did you think of the 2023 Netflix film Faraway? Comment below.
