… but not for me

EVERYONE ELSE (Maren Ade, Germany, 2010, 5)

Film about a German couple vacationing in his parents’ villa in Sardinia is wonderfully acted and directed in a very minor key but it grinds down into tedium in all its moment-to-moment observation without at least the couple of plot points that, say, the Dardennes give us. It’s like SCENES FROM A (NON-)MARRIAGE without overt conflict until very end, by which point I had long ago mentally checked out, decided he was a dick and she was a nut and that the movie and the relationship should both be over as soon as possible. For a romance, even a failed/failing one, it’s also remarkably lacking in humor — easily the film’s best scenes are the few that actually crackle with some wit and un-selfconscious goofiness like when they “dance” to “All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” or the men toss the women in the pool. I got no sense of what this couple ever saw in one another and why they were ever together, so really, it’s just very hard to give a frack. Got some respect back from me with a Woody Allen “need the eggs”-joke ending which feels appropriate for these two (and I don’t mean that entirely as a compliment).

NOTE: I resolve to be less shy this year about postings that are basically just polishings of thoughts I threw up on Twitter right after the film. This is obviously the first such post.