George Clooney and Cate Blanchett are in fine form as a pair of former lovers who meet again when American journalist Jacob Geismer (Clooney) returns to Germany to cover the peace talks at Potsdam in 1945. Lena (Blanchett) has been reduced to turning tricks for both the winning and the losing sides, but the suggestion of a larger agenda looms from the first grainy sequence. Her missing scientist husband is being sought by all sides, though none admit to having an interest in him, and the seeds of the cold war are sprouting in many directions.

It is good cinematic story telling at its best in the tradition of The Third Man and A Foreign Affair.  Using archival footage of war torn streets, triumphant military parades, newsreels of Eisenhower, Churchill and Stalin, with the backdrop of war ravaged Germany, Soderbergh evokes the mood of the period better than any film in recent memory. The washed-out background visuals and dark interiors suggest the sharp contrast between what appeared in the newspapers and the political and personal struggles still raging after the shooting stopped.

The visual style closely mimics late 1940’s filmmaking but manages to avoid parody. Though grousers may find Soderbergh’s vision derivative and some elements of the production design could be described as lifted directly from The Third Man, a century of movie making finds little that does not have its roots in what came before.

The ultimate test is that what works when you watch the screen. The Good German works. Slanted camera angles, ambiguous characters, and a plot loaded with as many questions as answers form the warp and woof that weave together the threads of the fabric of global configuration that we have 60 years later.  The love story becomes a prism to refract the complexities of our present geo-political universe.

Is the title an oxymoron or an affirmation? Did being on the winning side insure that the Allied forces would make moral choices after the war? Are human scientific minds commodities to capture and own? The film reveals an environment where efforts to track down Nazi criminals overlap with the conflicting goals of military and political positioning, not to mention re-building Europe. I did not read the novel and suspect that as usual, much is left out, but Soderbergh’s finished product does justice to the personal and the political narrative.

From the opening credits in the unencumbered 1940’s style, Soderbergh sustains an unmistakable mood. This is due somewhat to the black and white but even more to a sure cinematic sense. The soundtrack aids rather than overwhelms and the voiceover narration from several characters lends thematic balance.

Blanchett continues to emerge as one of the most versatile actors on the scene, and relived of some his boyishness, Clooney seems believable and fresh. The capable supporting cast enhance, including Tobey Mcguire as a self-serving weasel in a refreshing change of pace role.