Yahoo Lifestyle ‘What Marielle Knows’ Review: A Young Girl Suddenly Acquires Telepathy In Frédéric Hambalek’s Amiable Comedy – Berlin Film Festival
It turns out Marielle knows a whole lot, far too much for her parents’ comfort. In fact, after suddenly developing telepathic abilities, Marielle knows everything her parents do and say, which needless to say isn’t exactly a welcome development, either for her or her mom and dad. In his sophomore feature What Marielle Knows, Frédéric Hambalek imagines just how awkward it would be for a “normal” middle-class couple whose lives are built upon little daily lies to cope with a child who calls them out on every hidden action and fib.
It’s a good premise, and for the most part Hambalek plays it well by keeping it as natural as possible, minimizing the paranormal element and homing in on classic male/female behavior. But that’s the problem: it’s all rather too classic, too predictable in “what a man does” and “what a woman does.” What Marielle Knows is solid, coolly handsome and well-acted, yet the premise calls for something a little more disruptive than what it delivers.
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It all begins with a slap. Adolescent Marielle (Laeni Geiseler) calls a schoolmate a slut, the friend gives her a wallop across the face, and suddenly Marielle sees, hears and feels what her parents are doing, though no one else. Unfortunately for Julia (Julia Jentsch) and Tobias (Felix Kramer), neither of them has exactly covered themselves with laurels of purity that day. On a secret smoke break, Julia admits to colleague Max (Mehmet Aleşçi) that she’s incredibly bored with home life, leading to a verbally explicit flirtation between the two. The scene is exceedingly well done, with Max clearly thinking he’s controlling the situation, only for Julia to turn the tables and show that she’s more than capable of playing this game.
Meanwhile at Tobias’ book publishing office, he believes he’s won his point in a meeting over a novel’s cover, but then colleague Sören (Moritz Treuenfels) undermines his authority — legitimately, it should be added. At home over the dinner table, Tobias exhibits typical male behavior by recounting the story to his family but twisting the events to make him the victor. The difference this evening is that Marielle knows. Everything. And she tells them. Julia and Tobias are so caught out that they keep lying, which makes the turmoil-filled Marielle even more distressed. After all, how is a 13-year-old meant to feel when her vision of her parents as honest and loving is suddenly upended?
Every adult understands that quotidian lives are a complex jumble of truths and lies, and that honesty, secrets and privacy are malleable given the situation, but that’s not something a child learns overnight, which makes Marielle’s predicament especially disorienting. Naturally mom and dad assume Marielle must have installed some listening device, and they keep denying what their daughter knows to be true. Things don’t get any better once her parents accept their daughter is telepathic; Julia, as the caring mother, uses it as an opportunity to give Marielle a lesson in hang-up free sexuality (a concept that follows on from Hambalek’s first feature Model Olimpia), but that too misfires.
What Marielle Knows has a good sense of humor, and the 87 minutes breeze by to the accompaniment of classical snippets by Brahms, Schubert and others. Yet one keeps expecting some kind of subversiveness to explode this rather neat vision of traditional heteronormative bourgeois life. Instead, Hambalek simply reinforces stereotypes, such as adult male childishness, motherhood guilt, and indeed conventional sexual morality. They’re all gently ribbed, allowing us to have a good chuckle, but the movie is too nice to actually let any of these get imploded, or even seriously questioned. We’re never told why Marielle called her friend a slut, which is relevant given Julia’s clumsy/funny attempt to demonstrate a guilt-free approach to the body’s pleasures. And Tobias’ wounded male ego schtick is amusing but hardly original.
Both Jentsch and Kramer are game for the parts, though Julia’s is the better-written character, with more depth and an ability to challenge power dynamics, as seen in the first scene between her and Max. As Marielle, Geiseler is a real find, her bewildered gaze movingly conveying the tumult inside as her world is rocked to the core. Hambalek makes everything as real as possible, and Bartholomäus Martin Kleppek’s minimalist production design underscores the cold surface comforts of the well-off family’s home, but the hollow ring coming from the footsteps on the metal spiral staircase is indicative of a greater emptiness inside.
Title: What Marielle Knows (Was Marielle Weiss)
Festival: Berlin (Competition)
Director-screenwriter: Frédéric Hambalek
Cast: Julia Jentsch, Felix Kramer, Laeni Geiseler, Mehmet Aleşçi, Moritz Treuenfels
Sales agent: Lucky Number
Running time: 1 hr 27 mins
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