User reviews

German director Ade's 'Everyone Else' (or 'All the Others' -- 'Alle Anderen') is very much a women's picture -- in the very most positive sense.. Her story might be the kind Jane Austen would write if she lived today, when a young couple must learn about each other by living together -- but with the old problem of weighing themselves and their values against other people's and theirs. Ade focuses on the relationship between a young architect and his publicity agent girlfriend as they think about how to be together as a couple while spending the summer at his parents' villa on the island of Sardinia. Wonderfully natural acting by the two principals as well as action that shows off the mercurial twists in man-woman roles through day-to-day events make this film continually interesting to watch even though it lacks big dramatic payoffs. But when the calibration is subtle, as with Jane Austen, little matters like buying a dress or deciding what to carry on a hike become matters from which much is to be learned.

Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr) and Chris (Lars Eidinger) seem to have a lot of fun together. Gitti shows her eccentricity when she tells the little daughter of visiting friends to be up front if she doesn't like her. She even lets the girl pretend to shoot her, then does a mock death and falls into the pool. Chris seems a little insecure about himself; his talent as an architect has yet to pay off; he's uncertain about a competition he's entered, and Gitti is worried that he's a little wimpy. Perhaps to be more assertive, he insists they spend time with his fellow architect Hans (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and pregnant wife Sana (Nicole Marischka), whom he'd initially avoided, switching gears and now considering them as potential role models. Eventually Chris acknowledges this wasn't such a good idea; that he and Gitti are happier and better off being who they are. Though there's a somewhat failed hiking expedition, and Chris (off-camera) meets with a promising local client and his future suddenly brightens up, it's primarily the couple's weighing themselves against the seemingly more fortunate pair that embodies the film's life lesson.

The quirky redhead Gitti, given to fits of laughing, has insecurities too. She doesn't like it when she asks Chris if he loves her and he answers only by kissing her. She's continually afraid he may stop loving her. Both of them in fact are in love and grateful that they ever met. This is unusual in being about a happy couple, who are not headed toward tragedy or betrayal or other dramas. But the screenplay is nothing if not proof that "happy" isn't any more a fixed reality than "confident" or "grown-up." There isn't much more to the action than that, but it's all in the details as Ade spins out one scene after another in which Eidinger and Minichmayr run through a range of emotions together.

Some male viewers of this two-hour film find it self-indulgent and interminable. There's little doubt that the second evening spent with Hans and Sana doesn't have to be allowed to run so long to make clear they're bores, and the film could have done with some trimming. It also seems that Gitti's moodiness is allowed to go too far; you begin to wonder if she may need help. However when one thinks of how natural and real the two actors are throughout, it's impossible not to conclude that Ade is doing something right, and has trod familiar paths but avoided cliché. She just needs to develop more faith in the value of the cutting room.

Seen as part of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center 2009.

A very realistic tale about two people living on different frequencies and the shame and misunderstanding about and with the people you intend to be the nearest with. Told in front of a beautiful setting by breathtakingly great but unagitated and subtle actors. One of the must-see German films.

Similar in style and tone to last year's "Blue Valentine," the German film "Everyone Else" provides us with an oblique look at a troubled relationship. Though the couple in this film does not seem as overtly unhappy as the one in the American work, there is still something clearly eating away at their relationship. The most admirable aspect of the screenplay by Maren Ade is that it doesn't throw easy labels onto either the characters or the problems they're facing. The movie is really more a piece of objective reportage chronicling their lives over the course of a few days than a plot- and theme-driven narrative leading us to a preordained conclusion about them as people.

Chris (Lars Eidinger) is a gifted but apparently not very successful architect, while Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr), his girlfriend, who works in the recording business, seems to be generally supportive of his efforts. Chris and Gitti are spending a relaxing vacation at his mother's home on the Mediterranean, when Gitti begins to off-handedly question Chris's masculinity (we assume that it has more to do with his lack of initiative and drive than with his personal mannerisms). In response, Chris begins to treat Gitti in an ever more callous fashion, trying to prove her wrong by acting in the dismissive and domineering way he assumes "real" men do, and in the way, if Gitta is any indication, women apparently want them to.

But this synopsis really only covers the tip of the iceberg, for there are clearly many more complex dynamics taking place within this relationship that are not so easily delineated and described. Suffice it to say that the movie explores the myriad elements that go into relationships, and does so without spelling them out in simplistic terms and without passing judgment on the characters. The parameters within which any relationship must be set are still evolving and fluid in the case of Chris and Gitti, and this leads to much pushing of the boundaries and behavioral experimentation on the part of the couple throughout the course of the film. Ade's direction is unobtrusive and observational in nature, which allows the actors to interact with one another in a quasi-improvisational and thus wholly believable fashion.

There is, however, a definite downside to this type of storytelling – "Blue Valentine" suffered from it as well – and that is that the motivations for the characters' actions are often so murky and inexplicable that they can seem downright arbitrary to those of us who are watching all of this unfold from the outside in. That's why Chris and Gitti strike us as being more weird and annoying – if not downright daffy - than anything else at times.

Thus, your initial response might be to assume that perhaps Chris and Gitti simply aren't meant for one another and that they might think about looking elsewhere for a relationship. But, then again, if it were that easy to get out of a troubled relationship, we'd have no need in the first place for films like "Everyone Else."

Ade has that rare gift (taken to it's peak by filmmakers like Eric Rohmer and more recently Nicole Holofcener) of showing all the things movies usually don't. The little things, the subtle moments in a relationship that make up 98% of the time in real life, that lead to that dramatic 2% we usually watch on screen.

The story is about a couple in their early 30s, and not far into their relationship, taking a vacation and in the process slowly discovering each other in relation to each other and the world. Indeed the only brief moments the film feels false are when the biggest drama erupts. But for the vast majority of the time, thanks to wonderful performances by the two leads and Ade's seemingly casual, but very specific use of the camera, it feels like we are seeing the subtle, complex, confusing truth of a relationship, warts and all, in a way that's very rare on screen.

Maren Ade has set a German "Kammerspiel" in sunny Sardinia; a Dogma-looking, Eric Rohmer-inspired account of a young couple on vacation in a big, beautiful house - and their reluctant, but increasingly blatant attempts at penetrating each other's bodies and souls. She loves him. Does he love her?

"Alle Anderen" is not pitch-perfect (and has been received with varied reactions - from a posh Jury Grand Prix in Berlin '09 to fairly feeble reviews). Indeed, it's a bit too long for its own good and strangely uneven at times. But at one point, you just surrender to the subtle narrative and the complex, fully fleshed out characters (needless to say, Birgit Minichmayr and Lars Eidinger are phenomenal in the leads. Their performances look so simple, so easy-to-pull-off).

Maren Ade has accomplished the difficult stunt of putting the audience in the very same room, at the same intense wave-length, as these searching, anxious people. She allows us to eavesdrop to cunning conversations, to witness a constant (if not always visible) emotional struggle. And she keeps a shrewd surprise for the very end, suddenly pulling the rug from under our feet, forcing us to re-evaluate everything we've seen and heard up until this point.

The sound of silence can be damaging. Tears and laughter can be emancipating. Because in the end, it's all about love.

great actors, smart dialogs and a very precise observations of a young professional society in Germany. one of the best German films in a long time made by a director who knows how to direct great actors. people who like theatre will love this movie. when i went to this movie i expected a German version of a french movie from directors like francois ozon. i also expected it to be a typical movie made from a woman for women. still i expected a lot because the actors count to the best ones of German theatre. the movie did not turn out the way i expected it. the questions it raises about creative achievers who want to stay independent, free and young are shameless and razor sharp. every scene is observed very precisely without seeming to be constructed. gitty (birgit minichmayr) might not be as strong as many might hope but she never looses the main focus of this movie: authenticity

A typical festival film with zero audience appeal, 'Everyone else' could be used as a literally picture-perfect argument against state-funded film making.

The rudimentary story follows a young German couple on an Italian resort island. The man is an unsuccessful architect smooching off his parents (they live in their holiday home), the woman a somewhat bipolar concert manager. Their relationship is questioned by the man's lackadaisical loser attitude and the woman's whimsical fretting.

A story like this can only entertain, or at least interest, if it is a little funny. However the director Maren Ade takes very good care to avoid even the slightest trace of humor. Instead, the viewer is dragged along a two-hour stretch of two people boring each other to shreds - a scenario all too familiar to connoisseurs of German cinema.

Still, 'Everyone Else' won the Berlin Festival's Grand Jury Prize and its female lead a Silver Bear - which, considering her lobotomous approach to acting, is quite remarkable. This proves in my view once more the flimsiness of festival selections and the way awards are given away: a movie with such obvious dismay for any imaginable audience must surely be artistic and therefore prize-worthy - for culture politicians. Not for cineasts and the general public, that's for sure.

A much better German approach to the same topic would be the equally dry, but much more entertaining 'Windows on Monday' (aka Montags kommen die Fenster, 2006). That film has a weird sense of humor to it, which makes the drab couple-conflict plot work quite well.

I have only a few words to say about this movie. I am not interested in its ratings, and the angles in which it has been filmed, nor I will question the actors.

all I can say is that this movie showed MY RELATIONSHIP. me and my boyfriend have our very first portrait, and such fine details that made us burst in laughter and also deep and serious feelings we both found in this movie were depicted from our real daily life.

I couldn't have compared us to Gone with the wind, or other classic love stories. :))))

Congratulations to the director.

The thinking is too obvious. Get a couple of well built people to talk for two hours, with some (uninspiring) nudity thrown in and no one has to find too much money to produce something that looks like a movie. There are so many film festivals, one of them is bound to play it.

Fraulein Minichmayr is lively enough and she's been in some real films (Downfall, Perfume)so her first scene with the little girl holds hope - "Tell me why you think I'm so awful." Co star Eidinger as an architect offers a chance for some comment on taste and style which fail to impress.

Production values are in the competent unimpressive bracket.

It was the end of the Sydney Film Festival but this was not the movie to offer an audience which had just been blackjacked with the ridiculous Ming-liang Tsai VISAGE. Have they no mercy? Even film festival subscribers deserve pity.

It makes you feel to learn something about reality, also in your own life. Excellent German movie about tensions, honesty, lies, weakness, role games, superficiality in a relationship of a young couple. A very smart, vivid and profound portrayal of problems in a partnership. The same director as of other successful movies, e.g. Toni Erdmann!

A young German couple is on a business/vacation trip in Sardinia. They don't much like each other. They pretty much argue and snipe at each other constantly. They probably, in fact, should just get a divorce. Oh, wait: they're not married. So why the Hell are they even together? These two people just need to move the Hell on. The film really does understand its characters quite intimately, and the lead actors (Birgit Minichmayr and Lars Eidinger) are good, but so what? These people are just not worth caring about or observing in any way whatsoever. The movie moves very slowly and is basically the equivalent of hanging out with horrible people for a very, very long two hours. Terrible.

I'm going to keep this fairly short and sweet, which is not what the Director decided to do in this film. A long and laboring film about a couple who appear to have just met, but turns out are in a long term relationship, and have clear issues with each other and the wider world. All of the characters were unlikable, unbelievable and unpleasant. The redeeming feature should be the cinematography, but that is ruined by the Directors inability to edit the shots down. Uncomfortably long and voyeuristic sex scenes coupled with long silent pauses within conversations, which are painfully obvious there to portray the awkwardness between characters, add to audiences torture. I didn't like nor care for the characters and I was desperate for the Director to put me out of my misery and end this film. It finally did and I was happy. With some discipline, good actors and story this Director could achieve something watchable but unfortunately they didn't here.

'EVERYONE ELSE': Two Stars (Out of Five)

One of the most critically praised movies of the year which goes to show critic's approval doesn't always mean anything. The film tells the story of an unhappily married couple on a Mediterranean vacation. There's really not much else to it. It's a German film, with English subtitles, and it's written and directed by Maren Ade. It stars Birgit Minichmayr and Lars Eidinger as the couple.

Minichmayr plays Gitti and Eidinger plays Chris and as the movie opens they appear to be a happily married couple. As the movie progresses we get to slowly know the couple and how they relate to each other. We gradually see the cracks in their relationship as they grow bigger and bigger. In the end do we really care enough about these characters to really care if things work out between the two? I say no.

The movie is well acted and for what it attempts to do I think it's well made to a certain extent. I just don't admire what it attempts to do very much. It wants us to see what an average couple goes through in good times and bad and see what drives them apart and what keeps them together. I think they portrayed a believable average couple realistically, it's just not the type of couple I'd care to spend much time with. That's what the movie is like, spending a lot of time with an annoying bickering couple. For me that's hard to watch and pointless. I can go hang out with some of my friends if I want to see that. Other than living the painful realities of a painful relationship the movie has nothing else of any value to offer. There's nothing learned here and certainly nothing witnessed of any entertainment value. The movie just doesn't work.

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long review in making. saw this tonite nov 4 2010. Its a little too much chick oriented to me and became boring and kind of vague. its a good movie and a great sophomore effort by the director but some of the scenes just dragged on. If she dislike him so much why did she marry him?? why did he put up with the constant haranguing??? why did he not do more with his work? the married couple is unbelievable and unpleasant. this film has phenomenal 90 percent on rotten tomatoes and 6.6 on IMDb. the 66 out of 100 is my personal feeling. the ending had a real lack of resolution and for much of the movie nothing was happening.