Kruger’s range makes drama Globe-worthy
The first several minutes of “In the Fade” are vital because they lay out the crime on which the plot hinges and also establish the film’s lead character, Katja (Diane Kruger), as capable of joy.
Joy is not an emotion associated with the German-born, often Hollywood-employed Kruger (“Inglourious Basterds,” FX’s “The Bridge”), whose charisma always fills the screen but usually ranges in tone from grave to tragic.
But “In the Fade,” a German drama with melodramatic tendencies Kruger’s poignant performance helps offset, starts with Kruger radiating happiness, during Katja’s prison wedding to Nuri (Numan Acar), an incarcerated drug dealer in a Tony Montana white suit.
Kruger appears only slightly less ebullient when the film flashes forward about seven years, to Katja dropping off the couple’s 6-year-old son at Nuri’s office so she can visit a spa with a friend. Nuri has long since gone legit, doing taxes for fellow Turkish Germans in a largely Turkish section of Hamburg. Theirs is a happy family.
During Katja’s spa visit, a bomb goes off in Nuri’s office, killing him and the son. Kruger shows Katja crumple to the ground at the news, as if the blow was physical. Katja eventually gets to her feet, but Kruger will spend the rest of the film looking as if Katja still feels that blow, but can fight it off with outbursts of anger.
Anguish and anger were in Kruger’s toolbox before “In the Fade.” What impresses most here is the arc of her performance, from its starting point of happiness. Kruger shows more range than Frances McDormand does in her wonderfully ferocious yet virtually arc-less performance as a grieving mother in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Comparing performances from such disparate films would not be apt, and might seem reductive, were this not awards season — and had McDormand not been honored, at the Golden Globes and elsewhere, while Kruger largely has been ignored since she was named best actress at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.
The Golden Globe “In the Fade” just won as best foreignlanguage film probably will serve as Kruger’s primary awards-season recognition. Any honor for the film is an honor for Kruger, because her performance sustains interest in the movie when director and co-writer Fatih Akin (“HeadOn”), after a highly promising start, takes it into C-grade Liam Neeson territory.
The bombers were not Nuri’s former drug associates, as the police first suspect, but neoNazi terrorists. Akin drew this aspect of the script partly from real-life neo-Nazi attacks in Germany several years ago. Were the film more cohesive, parallels might be drawn to the recent rise in visibility of farright groups in the United States. But the only clear message to emerge here is that Kruger is a world-class talent.