Movie "Peacock - am I real?": My friend, a walk-in closet

Could reality be like this? Would an agency for rental friends or relatives, with whom you can impress others or give the impression of an intact family, really be called "My Companion"? Possibly yes, but it's not entirely original. Matthias (played by Albrecht Schuch) works for this company, has a huge walk-in closet that has the right outfit for every job, and seems so smooth that he could almost be an android. For a moment you are reminded of moments from "I'm Your Man" or "The Stepford Wives", but this is not science fiction, even if the question in the film's title - "Am I real?" - could be that of a robot gaining consciousness.

In contrast, Matthias has the problem that he seems robotic and cold, even though he is human and doesn't want to appear that way. His girlfriend Sophia (Julia Franz Richter) can't stand it any longer and leaves him.

In his feature film debut, for which he also wrote the screenplay himself, director Bernhard Wenger is guided by facts of the service society and, to a certain extent, by its fictionalized representation, as presented byWerner Herzog in his film “Family Romance, LLC” (2019), set in Japan.

Wenger's setting, on the other hand, is very Austrian, sometimes in a somewhat exaggerated way when it comes to upper classes and the cultural elite. And the service society itself is also exaggerated when, after a rented dog drowns, the first question is: Would you like another one in the same color next time?

The film benefits from a good ensemble cast. The brilliant Maria Hofstätter, for example, shines in the role of an oppressed woman who wants a kind of coaching from Matthias, where she playfully prepares for an argument with her husband. When she finally separates from him, theatrically empowered, he goes mad and pursues Matthias.

Lead actor Albrecht Schuch, who through his style of method acting has already taken on roles as diverse as that of the revolutionary artist ("Dear Thomas"), the artistic revolutionary ("Kruso") or the World War officer ("All Quiet on the Western Front"), is initially relatively close to his character of the abysmal high performer Adam Pohl from the series "Bad Banks" , but then later shows strong deviations from this when he starts crying in the middle of the theater audience - this scene is one of the highlights of the film.

The powerful symbol of the peacock, which is somewhat deliberately brought into this film, as well as its increasingly implausible finale, push the question of when we are actually real and when we are just acting a little too far.