Synopsis
German-Jewish cabaret singer Nelly survived Auschwitz but had to undergo reconstructive surgery as her face was disfigured. Without recognizing Nelly, her former husband Johnny asks her to help him claim his wife’s inheritance. To see if he betrayed her, she agrees, becoming her own doppelganger.
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Cast
- Nina HossNelly Lenz
- Ronald ZehrfeldJohnny Lenz
- Nina KunzendorfLene Winter
- Trystan PütterSoldat an Brücke
- Michael MaertensArzt
- Imogen KoggeElisabeth
- Felix RömerGeiger
- Uwe PreussClubbesitzer
- Valerie KochTänzerin
- Eva BayTänzerin
Recommendations
- 100
The Hollywood Reporter
Both a powerful allegory for post-war regeneration and a rich Hitchcockian tale of mistaken identity, Phoenix once again proves that German filmmaker Christian Petzold and his favorite star, Nina Hoss, are clearly one of the best director-actor duos working in movies today. - 100
Slant Magazine
Christian Petzold never luxuriates in all this film history, but rather channels the artifice and affect it embodies into new insights. - 100
Village Voice
The director's last film was the superb 2012 Barbara, also starring Hoss and Zehrfeld, another romance with a mystery built in; Phoenix is an even finer piece of work, so beautifully made that it comes close to perfect. - 91
IndieWire
Hoss' portrayal of a woman at odds with her surroundings is in a class by itself. - 91
The Playlist
Petzold distills a familiar atmosphere to create a work veiled in vibrant, cohesive, sensitively stimulating power. - 90
Variety
Because Petzold is such a gifted storyteller, with the lean, driving narrative sense of the film noir masters, he also keeps those twists and turns chugging smoothly along, building to a climax so expertly orchestrated that one imagines he started with it in mind and worked the rest of the movie backward from there. - 88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
With a riveting performance-within-a-performance of subtle physicality by Nina Hoss, the charade in which a woman plays her own doppelganger certainly borrows tension, look and conventions from postwar film noir. - 80
CineVue
Petzold's Phoenix is a high-concept premise executed as a heart-wrenching character piece.
