Directed by Maren Ade | 123 mins | 2009
Years before the crossover success of "Toni Erdmann", Maren Ade established herself as an uncommonly intelligent and bracingly honest voice in modern cinema with "Everyone Else", which earned the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear prize. Her second film begins as the long-term relationship between Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr) and Chris (Lars Eidinger) is approaching its end. Despite taking a holiday in an enviable Sardinian villa, the pair's icy resentment, disillusion, and desperation—conveyed by Ade in the subtlest of gestures and exchanges—metastasizes across two hours that compress a wealth of cinematic expression: break-up movie, screwball comedy, and John Cassavetes-esque psychodrama.