Suddenly nothing is good in the little town: the police officers try another milkshake, but then admit defeat and reach for a popsicle, even if it’s just not the same. The sportswomen are no longer comforted with ice cream after a defeat, and even the security guard at the city bank is only depressed because he no longer gets his daily ration of pistachios. It can’t go on like this, thinks Lucy (played by the twins Valerie and Violetta Arnemann), and because her parents (Kostja Ullmann and Franziska Wulf) don’t get any further credit and are otherwise quite unimaginative, Lucy takes on the future of the Gelateria Felicità herself In the hand.
Lucy is now a gangster tells of the commitment and initiative of a ten-year-old. Because the others aren’t doing anything, Lucy has to take over – even if what she’s planning doesn’t really correspond to her nature. Lucy is honest, polite, always anxious to let others share in her good mood – actually “far too good for this world”, that’s what the elementary school student keeps hearing from the people around her. But that’s exactly what she wants to be – because of the balance, as she says, someone has to balance the bad people, otherwise the world will eventually tip over. But now she wants, no, she has to become just such a bad person, a gangster, and no less than rob a bank.
To this end, she first looks a bit from Uncle Carlo (Kailas Mahadevan), who keeps making allusions to the Italian mafia, but then looks for a trainer: the cheeky classmate Tristan (Brooklyn Liebig), a pro at being bad . He is supposed to turn her into a gangster, in return she tutors him in math and all other subjects.
Most of the movie is this gangster training, or “Operation Lucyfer” as Tristan and Lucy call it. Lucy is supposed to cheat, blackmail, steal and not give a damn about what other people think of her. She’s obviously having a hard time with it. But because time is pressing and there is no other solution in sight, Lucy is increasingly able to put on a straight face and demand what she wants and needs. The well-behaved model student gradually turns into one who sets her own rules. But Tristan is also changing. And then there is Lucy’s best friend Rima (Lisa Marie Trense), who gets wind of the action and wants to prevent the bank robbery. The young actors play their roles convincingly, the sisters Valerie and Violetta Arnemann in particular manage to switch from innocent/good to self-determined/commonly convincing.
The special thing about this gangster comedy for elementary school students is that it doesn’t always tell one of the same plots for children, but an original story that sometimes takes turns and is difficult to predict – neither for the accompanying parents nor for the offspring. In some places, Till Endemann’s film gets a bit silly and exaggerated, but you can forgive him for that because he is at eye level with young cinema audiences and is full of beautiful ideas.
Lucy is now a gangster It’s mostly told from Lucy’s point of view. Again and again she appears as a narrator and speaks directly into the camera, taking the viewer into her world and world view. That’s why the oddity presented in the film also works. It’s an experimental arrangement, a fairytale story set in a fairytale universe that’s far too beautiful and dipped in candy colors, with far too friendly people and a manageable small-town world.
The setting is reminiscent of Scandinavian films: almost everything – apart from the home of Tristan’s family, which is the only room where there seem to be cell phones – is reminiscent of a nostalgically glorified earlier time, and looks like it did as a child would paint: the houses, the cars, the school bags and the girls’ braids – a harmonious retro look that fits the story that tells of happiness. It’s that little bit of happiness that comes along when there’s the right ice cream for every problem.
