The emo­tion­al, inti­mate real­ism of Maren Ade’s Every­one Else

You might assume that Toni Erd­mann – a film as uncon­ven­tion­al as it is uni­ver­sal­ly beloved – is a fluke, or that its Ger­man writer/​director Maren Ade is a one-hit won­der. Its essen­tial thrill, and sud­den suc­cess, springs from the under­rat­ed ele­ment of sur­prise: its rare, intre­pid rule-break­ing, and the esca­lat­ing, ante-upping antics of its unpre­dictable char­ac­ters. Hav­ing reached Palme d’Or and now Acad­e­my Award nom­i­nee sta­tus, it would be easy to be swept up in the phe­nom­e­non of this weird and won­der­ful com­ic cre­ation. Thank­ful­ly, Ade’s sec­ond fea­ture from 2009 stands as an ear­li­er, if under­seen, show­case of her con­sid­er­able talent.

From the out­set, Every­one Else reveals a devel­op­ing artis­tic style (sin­cere, irrev­er­ent) that sig­nals exact­ly what to expect from Toni Erd­mann. If the lat­ter is a high-con­cept crowd­pleas­er, its pre­de­ces­sor is akin to a polar­is­ing, neglect­ed mid­dle child. Its sig­nif­i­cance, though, lies in its pre­scient gen­der pol­i­tics, with the sto­ry cen­tring on a rela­tion­ship pow­er strug­gle so sub­tle it might explain why this charm­ing, curi­ous film didn’t receive a wider the­atri­cal release.

The film’s pro­tag­o­nists are Chris (Lars Eidinger) and Git­ti (Bir­git Minich­mayr), a young cou­ple hol­i­day­ing in Sar­dinia. We find them alone, in an anony­mous, seclud­ed idyll, and – giv­en that we’re told noth­ing of their lives apart, or at home – Ade empha­sis­es the couple’s shared short­hand and inside jokes. At ease in their leisure time, they often fin­ish each other’s sen­tences. Chris fash­ions an anthro­po­mor­phic penis from a piece of gin­ger root, name him ​“Schnap­pi”, and Git­ti not only laughs but plays along. Their get­away is abrupt­ly cut short and com­pli­cat­ed by the arrival of anoth­er (old­er) cou­ple and, more abstract­ly, the reap­pear­ance of the anx­i­eties and con­cerns of ordi­nary, irra­tional people.

Chris is an ambi­tious, albeit ide­al­is­tic, young archi­tect, and it is chiefly his wor­ry over his strug­gling career that inter­rupts the film’s extend­ed roman­tic over­ture. Apro­pos of noth­ing, he can­did­ly asks Git­ti if she thinks he is mas­cu­line – it’s this which intro­duces a struc­tur­al inse­cu­ri­ty that per­ma­nent­ly desta­bilis­es their rela­tion­ships. Gitti’s response makes the absur­di­ty of this line of ques­tion­ing clear, but ignor­ing her, inde­pen­dent of their secret rit­u­als, Chris laments miss­ing some rite-of-pas­sage into an adult­hood he direct­ly con­flates with mas­culin­i­ty. In spite of not feel­ing old, his hair has begun falling out.

Chris and Gitti’s behav­iour towards both each oth­er and com­plete strangers, gain sig­nif­i­cance as the sto­ry unfolds. Such is Ade’s dis­tinct brand of real­ism. The inter­val expires, the joke ends, and invis­i­ble shifts occur that are at the same time sub­tle and seis­mic. Poor Schnap­pi is some­thing sil­ly and stu­pid, until he takes on a pro­found sym­bol­ic val­ue: a fetish-object-turned-voodoo-doll.

Chris con­tin­ues his self-loathing and self-destruc­tion, keep­ing things from Git­ti to spare his ego, and feel­ing emas­cu­lat­ed, berat­ing her when she defends him pub­licly. She loves him for who he is, he hates her for it, and as their rela­tion­ship dete­ri­o­rates, Every­one Else excels in drama­tis­ing the trad­ing and trans­ac­tion of inse­cu­ri­ty. Infec­tious, exter­nalised and inter­nalised, Git­ti even­tu­al­ly con­sid­ers com­pro­mis­ing on her own per­son­al­i­ty, becom­ing docile and dot­ing to appease her boyfriend. The cou­ple try out their new (yet extreme­ly tra­di­tion­al) roles at a dou­ble-date, and reject each oth­er all over again.

Both Chris and Git­ti are in a unique­ly priv­i­leged posi­tion to hurt one anoth­er (a tal­ly could keep score in the cor­ner of the screen), and the vul­ner­a­ble dis­tri­b­u­tion of pow­er con­tin­u­ous­ly shifts in response to a new and new­er imbal­ance. Still, Every­one Else doesn’t devolve into a sim­ple bat­tle of the sex­es – a com­e­dy about the men afraid that women will laugh at them – and Chris is no vil­lain. He is, how­ev­er, only sym­pa­thet­ic inso­far as he is pitiable, a man at the mer­cy of how he believes he is perceived.

Arguably ahead of its time in its take on the tox­i­c­i­ty mas­culin­i­ty, Every­one Else is a sequen­tial view of two sides of the same com­plex, a por­trait of peo­ple who need to be a bit more like one anoth­er. Chris and Git­ti – not lit­er­al­ly hand­cuffed togeth­er like the pro­tag­o­nists in Toni Erd­mann – are brought clos­er togeth­er in the film’s whol­ly ambigu­ous, uncom­pro­mis­ing con­clu­sion. Ade’s great­est accom­plish­ment may be this per­fect con­fu­sion of con­trast­ing, con­tra­dict­ing emo­tion. Recall­ing, or per­haps antic­i­pat­ing, the impromp­tu nude par­ty or spon­ta­neous karaōke scene in Toni Erd­mann, Every­one Else leaves us with a moment of lucid­i­ty, a fleet­ing glimpse at the all-impor­tant, elu­sive loss of self-consciousness.