Peacock (Pfau – Bin ich echt?) is the debut feature by Bernhard Wenger. It was well received at last year’s Venice Film Festival, where it was screened in the Critics Week section. Matthias (Albrecht Schuch) works as a professional “friend-for-hire” for a company called My Companion. He is tasked with enacting roles that fill a void in the clients’ lives, such as a child needing a pilot father for school career day, a charismatic date to dazzle friends, or a single man requiring a partner to secure a couple-only apartment lease. He is the CEO of the company, which seems to consume his life. No wonder that his partner, Sophia (Julia Franz Richter), gets fed up and decides to leave him.
Sophia explains that she thinks Mathias doesn’t seem real anymore. It is easy to see her point. Her partner immerses himself in research for the various roles he plays, leaving him with little time for his partner. We will follow his meeting with clients, and in one case, a client’s husband, whose life is affected by Mathias’s efforts. His apartment looks like it usually does in this kind of film: ultramodern without any sign of a personal touch. Unfortunately, the same can be said about Peacock. When I watched the film at Nowe Horyzonty, I sat next to a woman who was not a critic but was mainly looking for a good time.
After the film, she told me that she had hoped the film would be more edgy. It is easy to agree with that sentiment. The premise evokes Lanthimos, particularly his most recent Greek feature, Alps (Alpeis, 2011). The director is no favourite of mine, and there is far too much of his style in Peacock. Even worse, it is mixed with the antics of Ruben Östlund. The business concept exists in Japan, where these kinds of agencies are successful. Still, the film is hampered by its predictability and its overt attempts at satire of the modern world. Everything from the aforementioned apartment to the depiction of a “modern world” reeks of clichés that we’ve seen far too many times.
One doesn’t have to think about the usual suspects, even though the film slips into Östlund territory the longer it goes, only to end in a tepid setpiece that looks like an outtake from The Square (2017). It is also logical to be reminded of recent films like The Hypnosis (2023) and What Marielle Knows from this year. It is disheartening to witness so many films that look more or less the same, and where the writing never reaches below the polished surface. The positive reviews for Peacock are puzzling, not least since all of them mention Lanthimos and Östlund. One argument is that the film is funny. I found the humour attempts too obvious to have any effect.
Peacock begins with a purportedly enigmatic scene of a golf cart on fire on a green. Suddenly, a man and a woman come running and manage to put out the fire with extinguishers. One of them is Mathias, and the scene’s context becomes clear long before it becomes something to ponder. It will quickly be apparent that the sequence is emblematic of the whole film. A meeting with a Norwegian woman (Theresa Frostad Eggesbø) doesn’t make Peacock any more compelling, alas.
The standout performance in the film is Albrecht Schuch’s portrayal of Mathias. He played the social worker in Systemsprenger, and he is a highly gifted performer. Regrettably, the script, penned by the director himself, doesn’t give him much to work with. Peacock’s success at Venice is not easy to understand, and there is very little to recommend about the film.
Peacock
Peacock
Director:
Bernhard Wenger
Date Created:
2025-08-02 22:49
Pros
- Albrecht Schuch’s performance
Cons
- Far too predictable
- Visually not outstanding