Unable to deal with a personal crisis, Gatis is struggling with depression. He feels like he is burning out. By accident he ends up in a strange cult-type therapy group that seems to trigger his self healing process, though it feels like he is losing his sanity. Is he healing or going insane?
Despair does absolutely nothing worth doing, but it does succeed in one area where several hack directors before him failed: bagging a bad performance from Dirk Bogarde.
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John Skow
RTTIME MagazineMar 18, 2015
Dirk Bogarde, looking natty and nerve-worn, is exactly right as the fissured Hermann, a chocolate manufacturer whose business has turned bitter.
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Wendy Ide
RTThe Times (UK)Mar 18, 2015
Certainly Dirk Bogarde's performance, although arch and mannered, is uncomfortably compelling. And the cinematography is undeniably striking. But I can't say I enjoyed it.
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Ted Whitehead
RTThe SpectatorMar 18, 2015
The resultant film is, he says, faithful to both Stoppard's script and Nabokov's novel; it is certainly not faithful to Fassbinder, who is here seen tripping over one style after another and ending up utterly ditched.
