Passion flames up as Friedrich Schiller is forced to choose between two noble but poor sisters in 1788.

Picture gallery

Summer 1788, in Rudolstadt. Out for a walk, the writer Friedrich Schiller meets the young Charlotte von Lengefeld. Impressed by her beauty, he courts her, but Charlotte’s mother wants a moneyed suitor for her daughter, not this insolvent, albeit talented, young writer. But Schiller won’t give up, and in the course of his attempts to win Charlotte, he soon notices her older sister Caroline. Driven by the romantic ideal of pure, free love, the three swear eternal faithfulness – until the jealousy sets in.

At first glance, Die geliebten Schwestern seems like your typically heavy drama by Schiller: a 170-minute film about a threesome between impoverished, noble sisters and an up-and-coming writer during the Weimar classical period. But Dominik Graf’s new movie is refreshingly modern and fresh – as are Schiller’s works, if you give them a chance. Luckily, this ménage-à-trois isn’t a prettified biopic, but a movie about the two sisters and their attempt to structure their loves and lives differently from the conventions of the time.