Catherine the Last: A messy romantic detour

Is it worth watching?

Honestly, you probably only want to click play if you’re a completionist for old-school European cinema or just have a weirdly specific soft spot for scullery maid tropes. It’s light, it’s fluff, and it definitely feels like it’s padding its runtime just to keep the music going. If you hate slow-burn comedies that don't really know where they're heading, steer clear.

The whole thing feels like it’s vibrating with nervous energy. Hans is the kind of guy who probably trips over his own shoelaces while trying to look cool in front of a mirror. You can tell within five minutes that his “master plan” is going to backfire, and yet we’re forced to watch him stumble through it anyway.

There’s this moment in the kitchen—I think it’s the kitchen, the sets all kind of blend into one brownish blur—where the lighting just gets weirdly aggressive. It’s like the lamp was screaming at the actors. 💡

Katharina is the only one who seems to have a brain, which makes it even more frustrating when she starts playing along with his nonsense. She’s the straight girl in a room full of people trying way too hard to be funny. It reminded me a bit of the frantic pacing in Brewster's Millions, but without the actual stakes to back it up.

Odd bits and pieces

• The music is loud. Sometimes it’s *too* loud, like the band is trying to cover up a mistake in the dialogue.
• The father is a caricature. I’m pretty sure he’s just a mustache with a voice attached to it.
• The scullery maid uniform looks suspiciously clean for, you know, a scullery maid.
• One of the side characters spends the entire second act holding a napkin like his life depends on it.

I found myself wondering if this was filmed on a Tuesday afternoon when everyone just wanted to go home. There’s a specific lethargy in the way they walk through doorways. It feels a lot like Cinderella but if everyone forgot their lines and just started improvising about soup.

Is it a disaster? No. It’s just... there. It exists in this weird space between a genuine romantic comedy and a fever dream. If you’re looking for something that requires zero brain power while you fold laundry, you could do way worse. Just don't expect it to change your life.

I’m still not sure why Hans thought that plan would work. Like, *at all*. But hey, that’s movies for you. Sometimes you just have to lean back and watch the train wreck happen in slow motion. 🚂