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«Paradise», the most popular German film of 2023

Paradise is a new Netflix sci-fi thriller from Germany. Paradise seeks to introduce audiences to a bleak not-so-distant future where human beings become commodities and age means a lot more than just a number. Directed by Boris Kunz, Paradise does touch on ideas like beauty, age, socioeconomic status, and the ever-growing technology industry.

What is the movie Paradise all about?

Aeon is a biotech startup that has grown into a multibillion-dollar company under the leadership of its founder Sophie Theissen. The company transfers years of life from young people to rich people so that they can pay their living expenses. A faction called «The Adam Group» disagrees with Aeon's technology and actively and violently opposes it. Their leader Lilith and her followers carry out several attacks on people with years of life transferred.

Max (Kostja Ullmann), an Aeon representative, convinces people to give up their years. He speaks from his own experience, having given up five years of his life to finance his studies. Max is a strong supporter of his employer. Another day, another deal for Aeon, for whom he's brokered 276 years, earning him a salesman of the year award from CEO Sophie Thiessen (Iris Berben). Thanks to his work, Max was able to afford a luxury apartment with his wife Elena (Marlene Tanczik).

Max and Elena visit her parents for dinner. Her father isn't so sure about Max's moral values, and debates him. It's obvious that what Max and Aeon do is awful, ripe for corruption and only deepens the divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Max and Elena go home to find their apartment in flames. The insurance company says someone left a candle burning so they're not paying up and now they are on the hook for €2.5 million. Of course, they don't have that kind of money, and this is where we learn that in order to acquire the apartment, Elena put down 40 years of her life as collateral.

When they can no longer repay the loan, Elena is arrested by the authorities and undergoes surgery in Aeon. In doing so, she will be deprived of forty years. As a result, her body ages abruptly and she becomes an old woman in a few days. Now she is played by Corinna Kirchhoff.

The procedure can be reversed. The donor and the recipient need to have a DNA match in order for it to work. Max suspects that Sophie has received Elena's years of life to rejuvenate herself. It turns out that Sophie had already realized that Elena was a time-appropriate donor for her years before Max met her. However, Max fell in love with Elena and the two married. In order for Sophie to continue receiving her time donation, she set the apartment on fire.

There are black-market firms in Lithuania that'll perform the procedure. Max is angry and wants to reverse the donation. He kidnaps young Sophie and escapes with Elena. However, it turns out that Max kidnapped not Sophie, but her daughter Marie. He still wants to implement his plan to teach Sophie a lesson. At first, Elena is not enthusiastic about Max's plan. However, since they both want to start a family, she finally accepts it.

However, the trio is captured by Adam's group. Lilith plans to lure Sophie into a trap and kill her. Max helps her because she threatens to kill Elena. A rejuvenated Sophie appears and wants to talk to her daughter. There is a confrontation in which Sophie is shot. There are also several victims in the Adam group, including Lilith. Elena and Max manage to escape with Marie. They turn to Dr. Berg, who should reverse the time donation.

Max begins to have second thoughts about his plan because he realizes that then he will be no better than Sophie. He confesses to Elena that he wants to cancel the plan. However, she disagrees and kicks Max out of the car. When she arrives at her destination, she reverses the donation and leaves Marie as the donor. Marie is then rescued by her mother's security personnel. However, she must realize that her mother has no intention of reversing her age.

At the end of the movie, some time later, we see Max observing Elena from afar, she is pregnant with a new man. Max is now the leader of the Adam Group and organizes a raid on an Aeon campus.

«Paradise» Ending Explained

When Max finds out that the person he kidnapped is not Sophie but her daughter, he feels it is unfair to do this to her because he believes her mother is dead and he will no longer be able to make the exchange of years with her. But Elena is willing to go through with the plan. Max feels uncomfortable with the ethics of this decision, leading Elena to abandon him.

Elena then takes Marie hostage. Elena takes her to Lithuania, where a doctor transfers four decades of Marie's life to Elena. After breaking up, Max becomes the new head of the ADAM group.

At the end of the film Paradise, Max sees Elena on a beach, where she is pregnant by someone else. It is unclear why Max and Elena are in the same place at the same time, as they are apparently estranged. However, it is likely that Max is working as an agent of ADAM.

Max is against all age-swapping, while Elena feels she did justice by gaining Marie's years. Since the ADAM group opposes all age-swapping procedures, they may have chosen to kill Elena. However, it does not appear that Max will be able to execute this plan.

Best quotes from Paradise movie

The film is about the ways in which poorer people have to sacrifice their years of their lives to the wealthier and more powerful, who extend their own lives at the expense of the less fortunate, thus perpetuating a disturbing inequality. When the story of 'Paradise' begins, Max doesn't believe there is anything wrong with this system.

But when Max realizes that the system is unfair and cruel, he teams up with ADAM to put a definitive end to age swapping. The ending of 'Paradise' suggests that hoping for change is not enough. As leader of ADAM, Max will now have to act against the wealthy elites behind AEON.

The story of «Paradise» pushes its hero to resist the unfair and dangerous practices that impoverish the poor and make the rich even more powerful. The film ends with the following reflection from Max:

«To buy someone's time is just another way of taking someone's life. I know this now. I've been part of this system. As long as Aeon exists, as long as illegal clinics exist, this injustice will remain. The time to fight is now. If not for us, then for our children.».

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