In writer-director Oskar Roehler's farce Agnes and His Brothers, Cologne is populated with freakishly exaggerated characters. As a horny librarian, Moritz Bleibtreu (Run Lola Run) wears unfortunate clothes and masturbates in the women's bathroom, newcomer Martin Weiss makes his screen debut as his fragile transsexual brother, and Herbert Knaup plays a conformist politician who takes dumps on his office floor and loves grilled sausages more than his tightlipped wife (Katja Rieman.)
Their stories are very loosely held together by a drunken ex-RAF father who never takes off his camoflage pants. The supporting cast consists of desperate butlers, flamboyant fashion stars, and porn actresses with hearts of gold. Roehler's parade of freaks and losers resembles the films of Todd Solondz (Happiness) or Ulrich Seidl (the Austrian director of the profoundly disturbing Hundstage), but neither Agnes nor her brothers ever feel real enough to truly shock.
There are a few moments when the peculiar combination of cliches pays off in sublime flashes of weirdness, but they are few and far between. When they're not having pitiful sex in convertibles, bleeding from botched sex-change operations, or getting chased by men with massive erections, Roehler's characters embarass themselves by vying for our sympathies. Agnes goes into the light, the librarian loser hooks up with the woman of his obscene dreams, and the suburban defacation artist finds hope in a field of mowed-down marijuana plants--in the end, every broken taboo is forgiven and melodrama wins out.
