In terms of craftsmanship, “Never Look Away” is definitely a well-made movie. It also starts promisingly and focuses on an aspect of Nazi crimes that is not as well known as many others. Saskia Rosendahl makes a good impression in the first few minutes, but the film lost me a little when lead actor Tom Schilling takes center stage. The supporting actors remain strong, especially Sebastian Koch and Paula Beer. However, Schilling remains somewhat bland, which is not ideal given that he is the focal point for the majority of the three-hour runtime.

I also had the feeling that director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck regularly tried to win back the viewer's attention with nudity, which I found a bit clumsy and didn't really work for me either. And the finale isn't particularly successful either, so the bottom line is that this sometimes interesting movie is ultimately rather mediocre.