Crazy

A skilful adaptation of Benjamin Lebert's autobiographical account of his boarding school experiences. 'My name is Benjamin and I'm a cripple,' is the new boy's frank introduction to his classmates. Ben (Stadlober, excellent) is gradually accepted and, together with Janosch (Schilling) and his gang, learns about friendship and relationships through boyish antics. The characters in this tragi-comic rites-of-passage are connected by their respective adolescent difficulties - lonely, fat, silent, dumb - but as the optimistic Janosch observes: 'Chicks go for fringe groups.' Ben's irrefutable 'difference' separates him from his friends and is captured in a wordless scene where he stands alone on a pontoon after his friends have swum away.