At the beginning we get to know the couple Mirco (Florian David Fitz) and Fatime (Aylin Tezel). When their son was a toddler, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. The so-called high-functioning autism means that the boy has a completely different perception than usual – and therefore develops special interests and sets up a strict set of rules in order to cope with his everyday life. “We’ll give him what he needs,” Mirco and Fatime decide while studying the symptoms in the relevant Wikipedia article.
The film manages to get off to a good start in these first few minutes, establishing the family’s situation. Below we see how Mirco is traveling around the country as a supervisor for a large burger chain, while Fatime tries to manage daily life with Jason (Cecilio Andresen), who is now at school, and their little daughter. When Jason allows himself to be provoked again by bullying peers, the parents are advised to send Jason to a special school.
To make it easier for the 10-year-old to fit in with his class, his grandfather (Joachim Król) advises him to get involved in football. Jason soon comes up with a plan to thoroughly research which club could be his favorite at games all over Germany. For this purpose he draws up an extensive catalog of criteria. Mirco agrees to the time-consuming project and from then on uses the weekends for train trips with his son. However, there are always difficult hurdles to overcome.
The script and its implementation do justice to both the parent and child perspective. On the one hand, it captures how Mirco and Fatime often reach their limits due to Jason’s behavior – for example when Jason insists on sitting in a certain seat at the bus stop, even if it is currently occupied by another (less understanding) person, or when the food on the train does not comply with the established rules because the pasta and the sauce touch each other on the plate. On the other hand, the film often empathizes with Jason’s perception of the environment, especially through the sound design, by letting us feel the effect that certain stimuli have on Jason’s condition.
The father-son relationship deepens in an engaging way over the course of the excursions together – which is not least thanks to the two actors Florian David Fitz and Cecilio Andresen, who (dis)harmonize perfectly with each other and thus in both the positive and negative aspects be able to convince even in conflict-laden moments.
In its design – for example the (pop) music background – and its dramaturgy Weekend rebels certainly predominantly conventional production. Nevertheless, the whole thing has a soul. The difficulties the characters face are not glossed over; The portrayal of the young protagonist does not rely on trivialization, but is characterized by credibility.
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