Everyone Else

Last night I decided to watch the German movie Everyone Else, an award winning movie. While I appreciated the fine acting by skilled actors, I found the movie to be somewhat tedious and a bit too long to tell the story. What is the story?

It is the story of Chris (Lars Eidinger) who is a gifted but apparently not very successful architect, and his girlfriend Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr), who works in the recording business. Gritti seems to be generally supportive of his many failed efforts, but you are not sure of this from the beginning. Chris and Gitti are spending a relaxing vacation at his mother's beautiful home on the island of Sardinia. When Gitti begins to off-handedly question Chris's masculinity things become testy between the two. For example, 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 women apparently want them to.

This minimal synopsis of Everyone Else only covers the tip of the iceberg. A very complex dynamic is taking place within this relationship that is not so easily delineated and described. Possibly I need to watch it again to unravel this dynamic, but I won't. This is not a bad movie, but it is one that I did not appreciate. I do not recommend this movie.