Paradise Parent Guide

Lifespan transfer technology revolutionized life on Earth as soon as it emerged. The ultra-wealthy suddenly found that they could pay to live decades beyond their original lifespan, rejuvenated and ready to amass even more wealth. There’s a catch: this long-term gain for billionaires takes years off the lives of the poor.

Once matched to a client, prospective donors are offered seemingly lucrative packages in exchange for years of their life. That’s Max’s (Kostja Ullmann) job: He must convince the poor and desperate that a massive immediate cash infusion is worth selling years of their lives. He’s excellent at his work. But when his apartment unexpectedly burns down and the insurance refuses to cover the loss, Max and his wife Elena (Malene Tanczik) are on the hook for a massive loan. Worse, the collateral on the loan is 40 years of Elena’s life. Max’s belief in his industry is shattered, and he immediately sets out to try and recover Elena’s lost time – only to walk into work and find the CEO looking about 40 years younger than she did yesterday.

This is another sci-fi movie with an interesting premise and a thoroughly mediocre follow-through. Science fiction excels when it exploits a radical premise to talk about current problems, but Paradise fails to capitalize on its clever ideas. How are you going to make a movie about selling your life piecemeal to the rich and not talk about wage labor? It’s not a big leap, guys. After creating this macabre new industry, the movie turns into a paint-by-numbers action thriller, completing wasting its intriguing premise.

Paradise is also not a great sell for family audiences, thanks to its violence and graphic sexual content. Parents might also take issue with the handful of sexual expletives sprinkled throughout the film, but next to the depiction of a mass shooting and some nudity, those seem like much smaller potatoes. The violence isn’t particularly explicit, but there’s certainly enough of it to deter sensitive viewers.

It’s hard to find a way to talk about this movie constructively, because it left me feeling bored and disappointed. At least if I were enraged I’d have something to say about it, but this German production is the cinematic equivalent of dry toast. As soon as you get past the exposition, it’s exactly like half a dozen other lazy sci-fi movies which can’t figure out how to make the most of the genre. Another interesting idea left to die gasping on the altar of mediocrity.