Murat (Baki Davrak) is a seventeen year old gay Turkish immigrant, who lives with his mother and brother in Berlin. Murat lurks around public toilets and drag bars trying to find some entry point into his adulthood and eventually encounters Lola (Gandi Mukli), a drag performer who turns out to be Murat's estranged brother. Lola is stuck in a relationship with Bili (Erdal Yilidiz) who's so hung up on being macho that he insists Lola have a sex change so they can marry and be man and wife, rather than a gay couple, something which Bili despises. Elsewhere, aging HIV-positive architect Friedrich (Michael Gerber) falls in love with Turkish hustler Iskender (Murat Yilmaz) and battles his controlling mother Ute (Inge Keller).

Despite its soapy, busy plot, Lola + Bilidikid is a tranquilised, ellipitical film that makes for a detached and ultimately unimpressive viewing experience. The film's excess of characters and sickly float of ennui and displacement just doesn't gel into anything interesting. We know that immigrants face racism and taunting all over the world, and the stock-standard sensitive-boy-coming-out plot really should have been retired to stud many moons ago. Ancient Keller, who's acted in German films since the 1940s, is an imperious highlight but even she seems to be wondering what she's supposed to be doing half the time.

The film attempts a commentary on breaking free from restrictive family bonds with Murat and Friedrich like generational bookends to a postwar Europe that has drifted in many different directions. But this film is too scattershot and its script too malnourished to do this interesting idea any kind of justice. Lola and Murat seem to fight for supremacy as the film's main character, but they end up in a disjointed stalemate where only one can appear in any one scene. Behind them, Bili, Friedrich, Iskender et al mash together as an indistinct mopey ensemble. The film's climax is incongruous and excessively pessimisitc.

Another German film about an artificially red haired Lola in distress released the same year was Run, Lola Run, an innovative corker that mopped up awards and audience excitement around the world. Lola + Bilikid could have taken a few more risks and well, been an entirely different film, and it may have avoided ending up the plain, ugly twin sister.

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