BREAK-UP MAN, to be screened as part of this year’s Audi Festival of German Films,  is standard rom-com fare with a slightly bitter twist given that it centres on a male lead who works for a “relationship break-up agency” that makes its money from dissatisfied partners who outsource the most unpleasant  part of a relationship.

Charming yet ambitious Paul Voigt (Matthias Schweighofer), who also directed the film and appeared in OPERATION VALKYRIE) works for the agency and has such bad commitment phobia that when adorable girlfriend Natalie delivers him an ultimatum to stay with her the whole night through, rather than do his usual wombat impression (of the eats, roots and leaves variety), he’s incapable of acceding to her demand.

Instead he finds himself a road trip with the luckless dumpee of his most recent assignment, one of life’s perpetual losers (or so it initially appears) called Toto (Milan Peschel). This, the longest part of the film, is more THE ODD COUPLE than THE BLUES BROTHERS, with clingy Toto constantly annoying the driven Paul, who is only a few break-ups away from making partner at the agency.

These oh so important breaks-ups that must not and cannot fail include a stock variety of comedy types, from the spoilt rich girl with an angry father to a rather large woman (spookily reminiscent of a certain mining magnate). A couple of hot lesbians also feature, not in a very enlightened way (yes, chaps, apparently it is true).

It’s not going to surprise anyone that by the end of the film Paul and Natalie are reunited and Toto turns out not to be such a loser after all. Along the way there are plenty of laughs and maybe, just maybe, the film is trying to be a fairly blunt satire on our shallow, materialistic society.