‘Enlightenment Guaranteed’ Deftly Blends Spirituality, Laughs

Early in her career, German director Doris Dorrie won international acclaim for her rueful comedy “Men . . .” and now with “Enlightenment Guaranteed,” she again tackles with humor but even more compassion the vicissitudes that can beset ordinary guys. Dorrie has also explored spiritual quests before, but her shift in tone from the comic to the serious is exceptional here in its ease and in its depth and scope. “Enlightenment Guaranteed” is as funny as it is nourishing, and it has stellar performances from Uwe Ochsenknecht and Gustav Peter Wohler, who play off each other like Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

Ochsenknecht’s Uwe and Wohler’s Gustav are 40-something brothers who live in Munich. Uwe is a kitchen counter-top salesman and disinterested parent living in a nice but overly crowded apartment with his wife and their four small children, while Gustav, a feng shui consultant, lives in chic high-tech style with his wife. Without any warning whatsoever, Uwe’s wife (Petra Zieser) leaves him, taking the kids and the furniture. Devastated, Uwe seeks the solace of Gustav and his wife (Ulrike Kriener), and drunkenly, sobbingly demands that Gustav take him with on his long-awaited retreat to a Buddhist monastery outside Tokyo. Sobered up the next morning, Uwe has second thoughts, but it’s too late; he has succeeded in wearing his brother down to the point that Gustav has already secured his airline ticket.

This prologue in Munich, followed by the brothers’ misadventures in Tokyo, takes up the 108-minute film’s first hour. Soon lost and broke amid Tokyo’s neon labyrinth, Uwe and Gustav start drawing upon for sustenance the Buddhist teachings in a book Gustav carries with him. Their experiences are funny and good-natured, and draw the brothers closer than they have been since childhood. Eventually, they arrive at the monastery of Monzen, where their adjustment to the routines of prayer and household labor is the source of continuing humor, yet Dorrie unobtrusively evokes in them a gradual and genuine spiritual awakening and enlightenment.

The great lesson for the West from the East, Dorrie has said, is how to learn to live in the present and not for the future. This is what Uwe and Gustav learn, and Ochsenknecht, a strapping, blue-eyed, blond Teutonic type of fleshy good looks who was one of the stars of “Men . . .” and Wohler, short, plain and rotund, move between the comic and the serious with ease, bringing alive the brothers and their transformation. (Ochsenknecht also stars in another effective comedy, “Soccer Rules,” screening Tuesday at the Goethe Institute.

“Enlightenment Guaranteed” is a film of consistent visual grace, shot with plenty of panache in warm sepia hues by Hans Karl Hu. Dorrie’s films surface in the U.S. erratically, which is typical for European cinema these days, but they always prove rewarding.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: Language, adult themes and situations.

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‘Enlightenment Guaranteed’

Uwe Ochsenknecht: Uwe

Gustav Peter Wohler: Gustav

Petra Zieser: Petra

Ulrike Kriener: Ulrike

A Capitol Entertainment release of a Bernd Eichinger presentation of a Megaherz production. Writer-director Doris Dorrie. Producer Franz X. Gernstl. Executive producer Louis Saul. Story consultant-art director Ruth Stadler. Cinematographer Hans Karl Hu. Editors Inez Regnier, Arne Sinnwell. In German, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 48 minutes.

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