Everyone else

This film tells the story of Gitti and Chris, an odd couple who are battling their way through a holiday of secluded togetherness. It is an intimate portrait of two people as they can only be when alone: their secret rituals, their silliness, their unfulfilled dreams and their power struggles.

A seemingly unimportant event – an encounter with another couple – serves to destabilise their relationship. Not only is the other couple more successful, the two also manage to conceal conventional gender roles beneath a modern façade. Taking a leaf out of the other couple′s book, Chris begins to show his wilful girlfriend who′s boss, with the result that Gitti′s faith in her partner takes a hard knock. She attempts to conform to his new ideal, but what begins as a playful experiment with a new role soon turns into a quiet struggle with her own personality. Although Chris begins to flourish in his role as the stronger of the two, and Gitti begins to loosen up in a completely new way, they are both in danger of losing themselves.

A subtly humorous, cruelly meticulous study of the contradictory desires of a couple searching for their own identity. An intimate love story that plunges into the depths of a relationship and reflects the emotional disorientation of an entire generation. Maren Ade: "I wanted to make a film about the convoluted yet unique entity that is represented by two people in a relationship. The main character of the film is not so much an individual as a couple."

Source: 59. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (Catalogue)