“The early bird catches the worm.” Right? That’s the saying, anyway.
However, Early Birds sort of disproves that saying. In fact, it probably saves someone’s life. So, think about that, dear reader, the next time someone you love gives you sass about being lazy and staying in bed too long. Snoozing your alarm clock could save your damn life!
Early Birds, a German-language Swiss thriller directed by Michael Steiner, tells the story of Anika (Nilam Farooq), who wakes up after a heavy night partying (and substance-taking) to find her drug-distributing partner getting screwed out of a deal. Bingo-bango dead-o to everyone involved, and she is now in possession of a bunch of drugs and a shit-ton of money. But, can she find a way to sneakily exit stage-right without anyone discovering her?
No. No, she can’t. It wouldn’t be much of a film if that was the case.
Party girl Anika and small-time thief Caro (Silvana Synovia) don’t like each other, and they’re fine with that. Anika is stuck-up and entitled, while Caro is a little rough around the edges. However, after the former absconds with the proceeds of a drug deal gone wrong, happenstance throws them together. Annika finds refuge from evil henchmen and then the police by breaking into Caro’s apartment and hiding the loot there because leaving with a blood-stained duffel is kinda suss.
It’s the setup for an awesome buddy cop movie, but this time, we’re on the other side of the law. Caro and Anika devise a plan to leave the city together and split the money… if the highly suspicious police don’t discover them first. I mean, there’s a bunch of dead people upstairs, and they’re not the best liars in the world, sooooooooo...
Can they get out of town and live the life they believe they deserve, or will they get pinched or killed by their pursuers before they do? That’s even if they can trust each other in the first place! Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
Early Birds is stylish as f*ck. The cinematography and the use of color is a feast for the eyes, especially the scenes shot at night where the saturated neon cuts through the screen. It’s freaking awesome. Up in the mountains, the wide landscape shots are breathtaking. I suppose there’s a benefit to filming in Switzerland, with snow-laden mountains adding to its beauty.
One of the two main protagonists, Caro, is excellent. Played terrifically by Silvana Synovia, Caro is an immigrant with a troubled past. She’s in the process of partially cleaning up her act, working as a nurse in the city. However, the temptation of petty thievery still calls to her and jeopardizes her long-awaited reunion with her estranged son. Anika’s opportunity is seen as the perfect way to start afresh. Synovia brings an inherent likability to the character despite her flaws, and her emotional moments are heartbreaking. It’s very well done.
Although the villains of the piece are fairly standard fair (drug dealers of non-Swiss origin), the film does a good job of setting up everyone you’re supposed to hate. Even the police, who by their nature are acting against Anika and Caro, are introduced as over-aggressive douchebags. Honestly, you can’t help but root for Caro against these guys.
For how much I cared about Caro's fate in Early Birds, I actively disliked the other “protagonist,” Anika. She sucked so bad. It’s great to have flawed characters and everything, but Anika is selfish, brazen, rude, and an overall bad egg. She’s not someone you’d bring home to the parentals for a family meal. It’s a good job she partnered with Caro, or else I would have been cheering for the bad guys.
It bugged me a little bit that Caro and Anika became so close so quickly. They went from pure unadulterated hate to severe mistrust, to we kinda like each other in a matter of hours. During that time, Anika also tries to double-cross Caro a couple of times as well. So, I guess I’m saying that I just didn’t buy their friendship progressing so quickly because Anika sucks so bad!
I also had an issue with one plot hole. At the beginning of the movie, the drug deal goes bad because there are some shenanigans with fake product in the cocaine mix. This was only used in the context of the opening despite Anika stealing the duffel of cash and crack. She even partakes in the stuff and just so happens not to pick out the baby powder brick? They could have used it in the story’s progression fairly easily, but this seemed to be forgotten about.
My expectations for Grimmfest were not met with Early Birds, but that’s not because the film was bad. I simply wasn’t expecting a thriller with little to no horror elements to be shown during the horror festival.
But I’m glad it was, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen this solid, stylish caper set (mostly) in Zurich, Switzerland. Anika and Caro make for an odd couple to team up (almost unbelievably so), but I found myself caring about what happened to them, hoping they would prevail. Yes, Anika was only by proximity because Caro is the real hero of this piece, but nonetheless, I cared.
Early Birds doesn’t do anything particularly new, but what it does is accomplished with style and aplomb. This was the first movie I saw at Grimmfest, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it.
I guess the early bird really does catch the worm…
