Radio Heimat started out as a compilation of short stories about the -- mostly unspectacular -- childhood of author Frank Goosen in the Ruhrgebiet (Bochum, specifically) in the 1980ies, although this movie makes it look like the 1970ies -- and sound way cooler than the 1980ies really were, with only the hits and none of the shite which was as abundant as ever back then.
By the way, although they often only have minuscule parts, this movie features a plethora of the famous actors from the West Germany's Wild West.
The first third of the movie features a pastiche of absurd and funny scenes that are a surprisingly convincing cinematic rendition of the book. Then the movie wanders off into teenage trope territory and narrates the entirely predictable story of how young Frank first got his tops and fingers. He falls for the beautiful queen bee of the school, Carola, but when he finally gets close to her, in a scene that makes many porn movie look like cinéma vérité, he realizes that she's beautiful, but bland! Not that that would've stopped me or anyone else I know. Later, during a booze-filled field trip, an equally beautiful chick pops out of nowhere, but this time she has PERSONALITY (signified by her not wearing neon earrings nor jerry headbands) and the two proceed to have meaningful sex with the approval of all of his friends.
It's an unoffensive movie that you can watch on TV with a beer at hand. But we've all been young, we should all know what it feels like to have been 16 and inadequate, why are most of the movies about this topic so generic? The charm of the book was rendered fairly successfully in the beginning of the movie, then the producers must have been like: Sod it, let's just make another teenage flick.
