Charlie and Louise – Das doppelte Lottchen
5.6 /10 1 Votes
Cinematography Joseph Vilsmaier Story by Erich Kästner | 5.5/10 IMDb Produced by Peter Zenk Director Joseph Vilsmaier | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Based on Das doppelte Lottchenby Erich Kästner Starring Fritzi EichhornFloriane Eichhorn Music by Norbert Jürgen Schneider Initial release 17 February 1994 (Germany) Music director Enjott Schneider, Martin Grassl, Stefan Will Screenplay Reinhard Klooss, Stefan Cantz, Stephan Reinhart, Klaus Richter Cast Corinna Harfouch, Heiner Lauterbach, Hanns Zischler, Hans Werner Meyer, April Hailer Similar Twice Upon a Time, Kuch Khatti Kuch Meethi, The Parent Trap, Do Kaliyaan, How the West Was Fun | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Charlie & Louise – Das doppelte Lottchen is a German children's film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier in 1994, starring Corinna Harfouch. It is a film adaptation of the novel Das doppelte Lottchen by Erich Kästner.
Contents
Plot
Two 12-year-old girls, Charlotte "Charlie" Palfy from Berlin and Louise Kröger from Hamburg, meet on a train going to a language school in Scotland. They are shocked to see how much they look alike. They soon find out they are identical twins. Shortly after their birth, their parents split up, and each of them took one girl. Neither girl knew she had a twin sister, and they both believed their other parent was dead. Though they look alike, they are very different in personality. Charlie, as the daughter of a music hall composer, is cool, self-confident, and somewhat impolite, dresses accordingly, and listens to techno music. Louise, who grew up with her mother, who works in advertising, wears conservative clothing and is rather shy and quiet.
The two girls concoct a plan to find out why they were separated by their parents. Charlie travels to their mother in Hamburg, pretending to be Louise, who in turn pretends to be Charlie and travels to their father in Berlin. Much chaos ensues as both girls try to settle into their new lives without anyone noticing the difference. The girls' situation gets even more difficult when they realise both parents have new partners, whom they intend to marry.
In the end, Charlie and Louise can think of no other way than to run away to get their parents back together. They travel to Scotland and hide in an old lighthouse, from where they are rescued by their parents.
Back in Hamburg, the father agrees that both girls can stay with their mother. He gets on the train back to Berlin, but before the train has pulled out of the station, he finds a note by Charlie in his pocket saying "Es gibt Momente im Leben, da muss man die Notbremse ziehen" ("There are moments in life in which you've got to pull the emergency brake" - Note: In German, the expression "die Notbremse ziehen" can also mean "to pull out of a situation before it's too late"). He pulls the emergency brake, leaves the train, and decides to stay with his family after all.
Cast
Differences between the film and Erich Kästner's book
The whole story has been modernised. It now takes place in the 1990s. Due to that fact, many aspects of the original story have been changed. Here are some of the important differences:
Soundtrack
Lessmann/Ziller released a single in 1994 entitled "Charlie & Louise" for which the Germany musical duo, known from Bonfire, perform four different versions of the title song from the movie.