Jason at B&B sees 'The Free Will'

Although this movie also stars Jürgen Vogel from "A Friend of Mine", it's a very different role which showcases his acting range. Instead of a fun-loving clown, this time he's Theo, a suicidally depressed rapist just let out of a mental hospital after 9+ years. He's determined to show he can be good and live a normal life, but he soon finds it's nearly impossible. From the not-at-all subtle sexual advertising everywhere to the crushing loneliness of people around him, the messages are everywhere. It gets even harder when he meets and starts a tentative friendship with his bosses daughter Nettie (Sabine Timoteo, also from "A Friend of Mine"), who has been abused herself. Ultimately it becomes an obviously doomed love story about trying to break the pattern of abuse. It's unflinching in it's graphicness, as well as in it's sympathetic portrayal of Theo, a man who has done enough bad things we'd prefer to dismiss him as a monster. But this movie, without excusing him, at least asks you to look at him.