Dir/Wri: Ina Weisse | Germany Drama 2025
Nina Hoss brings her signature style to another muted middle age crisis drama from German director Ina Weisse following on from The Audition and The Architect.
The German star is always watchable and here she plays Isabell, a browbeaten woman in her late forties, in a thoughtful and visually appealing but underwritten three-hander, elegantly set in the German countryside between Berlin and Brandenburg.
A fraught story about Isabell ‘parenting’ her ageing architect father and artist mother is certainly a worthwhile and relatable theme but what works better here is the flailing love story between Isabell and Philippe (French star Vincent Macaigne) whose relationship is also in troubled waters. The spirited episodes between these two class actors come alive as they work through their backstory – a much misunderstood and childless marriage – but this strand eventually goes on the rails despite a positive outset.
All this feels worlds apart from the torpid narrative strand involving Saskia Rosendahl’s hard-up single mother Anja trying to sell a motorbike to keep her family together. Whether Weisse is merely exploring and contrasting the women’s different social backgrounds, or even suggesting something more intriguing, remains enigmatic. If there is a spark smouldering between Isabell and Anja it would feel certainly forced and bogus despite its virtue signalling potential: Weisse skates around the issue and there’s clearly attraction but also repulsion on both sides as the film reaches its inconclusive conclusion.
Weisse certainly has a fabulous eye for framing and mise en scene but her first foray into single-handed scriptwriting is less successful here despite the film’s obvious attractions. @MeredithTaylor
BERLINALE 2025