Paradise Review: Weighty Performances Can’t Elevate This Uninspired Lovechild of ‘Divergent’ and ‘In Time’

Paradise Review: The German science fiction thriller movie released on Netflix on July 27, 2023, and it stars Kostja Ullmann, Corinna Kirchhoff, Marlene Tanczik, Iris Berben, Lisa-Marie Koroll, Lorna Ishema and Numan Acar in pivotal roles alongside others. Restricted to adult viewing, the film has been directed by Boris Kunz, and also written by him along with Simon Amberger, Korbinian Dufter, Rafael Parente and Peter Kocyla.

With a runtime of 118 minutes, the suspenseful 2023 release is centred around the nearly perfect life led by the disillusioned biotech employee at AEON and his wife, until an accident rids their “paradise” of happiness, bringing about a catastrophic life-altering change.

Paradise Netflix Movie Review Does Not Contain Spoilers

Paradise Plot

Situated in a futuristic society whose wealthy classes aim at commodifying people’s lives and exchanging their years for money, the one leading this revolutionising operation is Sophie Theissein, the CEO of the biotech corporation AEON. Her ultimate goal is to win control over one’s age and life instead of these natural factors controlling us. Pushing the boundaries of her corp’s research, her far end aim seems to be attaining immortality.

In the midst of all this, we have Max, a dedicated employee at the same organisation, who’s been helping find donors ready to give up their life’s years. On the personal side of things, he’s leading an almost blissful life with his wife Elena as they hope to expand their family and settle into better ways of life as per their old ideal dreams. All seems to going well until a fire breaks out in their apartment, and since it appears to be an accident caused due to negligence, Elena is ordered to give up 40 years of her life as collateral.

The eventual race against time follows the couple trying to reset the dial and bring things back to as they were before, but it all drastically changes everything and pushes them to be on the run while trying to figure out a solution for their predicament.

Paradise Review

Putting together possibly all the archetypal tropes needed to for a sci-fi thriller to become a great hit, Paradise 2023 still falls short of pulling itself off the ground due to the lacking bare foundational strengths. Kostja Ullman believably breathes vulnerability into his character, but his and the other leading performances aren’t enough to feed the film with the much-needed fodder its script is otherwise missing.

Watching this movie instantly took me back to my memories of the Divergent series because of how similar the decrepit dystopian world-building of the German thriller is. However, the darkly disordered worldview only grants us a tiny glimpse of the impending fears associated with the premise of age-reversing. The barter system set up by AEON monetises people’s age (as also seen in movies like In Time), and as intriguing as that base concept is, the film’s execution doesn’t seem to be excited for the viewers to be interested in the characters so introduced to us eventually.

Also read: 5 Cillian Murphy Movies That Are Criminally Underrated

Neither of the characters emerge as multi-faceted human beings, they simply pop out of the script as two-dimensional caricatures, and while the cast does its best to bring these personae to life, their hard work can only go so far in carrying a piece that doesn’t want to hold its ground. With a few plot twists interjected into the storyline, the movie tries to gain our attention, but even these changes appear predictable by the time we’ve finished watching the film.

Despite introducing us to a formidable antagonist, the AEON CEO, who’s capable of eliminating innocent lives for her own profits and interest, we don’t get to know much about her either, and the whole characterisation just falls flat. Neither does her character design present her as a grey presence in the mix, nor does it do much to make the viewer hate her.

Even the opposing fraction standing tall against AEON is led by a woman with firm beliefs, but that side of the story doesn’t contribute anything and bodies keep dropping left and right. It ultimately leaves us with a question – what really was the point of it all, if neither the negative forces leading the controversial ageist agenda had anything to speak for themselves, nor the resistance party trying to reinstate the status quo. Although classism and ageism are the obvious themes being dealt by the movie, the social commentary in that arena also feels lacking, again resulting in merely a crumbling down of the whole idea that could’ve set apart a larger than life image, but never does.

Paradise Netflix 2023 Movie: Final Thoughts

Personally, I was looking forward to this release owing to my own cravings of a good science fiction thriller hit, but again that ship has sailed without leaving me with much to remember in the end. Unfortunately, Boris Kunz’s latest feature has only resulted in a run-of-the-mill forgettable viewing experience. As much as I wanted to like this one, it didn’t really hand out a significantly building up narrative, nor did it lay out worthy character developments. Its sole dark vision of a society falling apart with a classist billion-dollar company set up at the centre only brings out the obvious view of a dystopian setting, but nothing more than that.

Initially, the German film pushes a great deal to cement its foregrounding issues about the socio-economic divide between different classes of society, ageism, relationships, technological advancements overtaking emotional human ground and more. But, in the end, it merely reels out a dystopian concept on the surface which lacks profundity.

Paradise is now streaming on Netflix.

Also read: The Murderer Review: Phetthai Vongkhamlao Stars in an Entertaining Crime-Comedy