Everyone Else's intimate confrontations

From a “crap” movie – as my friend and I deliciously described Inception (July 17 post) – to a very good or excellent movie. This was Germany’s Maren Ade’s Everyone Else (2009), screened the last two weekends at the Detroit Film Theatre.....Here is a “little” film (as compared to the blockbuster – har har - Inception) that is a study in the real emotions between an intimate couple.....Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr) and Chris (Lars Eidinger) are on vacation at his mother’s villa in Sardinia. All appears to be going well. But it is apparent that aspects of their personalities grate on one another (Chris condemns Gitti’s TV watching and her talking while he’s reading). Later, Gitti is ready to confront Chris on whether he really loves her, baring her soul to the superficiality of her Significant Other’s evasiveness and lack of introspection. At one point she calls him a “weakling”.....In fact Gitti is a much more interesting and complex character than Chris – more rounded, more passionate and more intellectually astute. This is despite Chris’s condescension towards her, perhaps derived from the fact he considers himself a good architect. For him it’s all about his job and not much else. (Where have we heard that before?).....The film is full of these little everyday dramas as the characters try to determine, and finally resolve, if they are meant for each other.....This is Ade’s third film. Her last, The Forest for the Trees (2003), is about an idealistic high school teacher who comes up against some unexpected realities – yet another test for the raw emotions.