‘AEIOU — A Quick Alphabet of Love’ Review: An Oddball German May-December Love Story
variety.comGuy Lodge Film CriticThe title is a bit misleading in German writer-director Nicolette Krebitz’s offbeat romantic comedy “AEIOU — A Quick Alphabet of Love.” Despite its promise of deeper meaning attached to all the vowels in the alphabet, it’s ‘A’ on which it fixates: Said aloud and elongated, we are told, the first letter vocalizes a spectrum of feeling ranging from primal need to sharp pain to orgasmic release.
Sure enough, all are present in this unpredictable tale of mutual misfit attraction between a juvenile delinquent and the middle-aged actor whose role in his life shifts from mentor to mother to lover.
It’s difficult, prickly material that “AEIOU” handles with a light touch, even as the narrative lurches recklessly across genres into flighty caper territory.
Marked by a gentle deadpan drollness that occasionally blossoms into fanciful romanticism, this an altogether less intense proposition than Krebitz’s last feature, the Sundance-selector 2016 psychodrama “Wild,” in which a socially alienated young woman finds what one might politely term companionship with a voracious wolf. “AEIOU” doesn’t go quite so aggressively out there, though it does extend that film’s exploration of female desire outside society’s accepted norms — while its amorally lyrical depiction of a romantic relationship between a teenage boy and a far older woman will still raise plenty of eyebrows.
Read more on variety.com