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Think Pretty Woman meets The Monica Lewinsky Story and you’ve got A Girl Called Rosemarie. Based on Germany’s biggest political scandal of the 1950s, Bernd Eichinger’s film (originally a miniseries for German TV) follows Rosemarie (Nina Hoss), an orphan who learned at an early age that sex gives her power over men. She proceeds to use that knowledge in an attempt to become a major player in high society and ultimately “marry a prince.” She thinks she has found the man to help her achieve this when she seduces Konrad Hartog (Heiner Lauterbach), a rich politician with many highly placed business connections; she even falls in love with him, but he has no intention of leaving his fiancée. Feeling spurned, Rosemarie proceeds to hook up with all of Hartog’s contacts, one by one, and expose the hypocrisy of a society in which prostitutes are used all the time yet still are considered unworthy and unmentionable. The plot thickens even further when Rosemarie forms an alliance with French arms dealer Fribert (Mathieu Carriere), who suggests she record all of her encounters, in exchange for which he will teach her how to blend seamlessly into high society. Naturally this is going to end badly for someone. It’s to Eichinger’s credit that he manages to give virtually every character some sympathetic characteristics (since everyone in the film is essentially a self-centered hedonist), and American viewers will no doubt marvel at the lavish production values and uncensored content of German TV. Sadly the story descends into lameness during the last half-hour, and we get Rosemarie being stalked through a parking garage, a cat leaping out for gratuitous shock value, and a creepy spiral staircase. Hoss is sizzlingly sexy throughout, and one never doubts for a moment that she could bring down even the most upstanding of politicians.
