Susan Granger’s review of “Paradise” (Netflix)
Admittedly at first, the German dystopian thriller – cryptically titled “Paradise” – has an intriguing premise but then absurdity takes over.
Set sometime in the not-too-distant future, the bio-tech conglomerate Aeon is marketing revolutionary medical equipment that enables people to transfer years of their lifespan from one to another. It’s a controversial system that’s obviously open to corruption and abuse.
Donation manager Max Toma (Kostja Ullmann) is one of their most successful ‘agents,’ convincing marginalized people – like immigrants and refugees – to trade a portion of their young lives for a windfall of money. Their years are then sold to wealthy clients who want to extend their longevity by undergoing the ‘youth transplant’ procedure.
Problem is: when the luxurious apartment belonging to Max and his physician wife Elena (Marlene Tanczik) burns down and their insurance is declared invalid because someone left a candle burning, they’re deeply in debt for the mortgage. It’s a desperate situation that forces Elena to ‘donate’ 40 years of her life.
Strapped in a chair, hapless Elena instantly becomes an older woman (Corinna Kirchhoff) as her years are transferred to Max’s DNA-compatible boss Sophie Theissen (Alina Levshin). But – wait – can this ever be reversed? If so, how?
Their bizarre situation arouses Max’s suspicions, impelling him to join the Adam Group, a terrorist organization that kidnaps and executes elite donation recipients – and one of their prisoners appears to be Sophie’s daughter, Marie Thiessen (Lisa-Marie Koroll).
Written by Simon Amberger, Peter Kocyla and director Boris Kunz and filmed in Lithuania, this sci-fi thriller – with far too many extraneous subplots – questions the morality of buying ‘time’ but soon becomes predictably generic, never delving deeply into the relatable concept of ageism and the philosophical ethics involved in pursuing youth.
In German and English, on the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Paradise” is a forgettable, formulaic 4, streaming on Netflix.
