SOMEDAY WE'LL TELL EACH OTHER EVERYTHING

Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything, Strand Releasing

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 6, 2024

Either the sex is really good, or the life of a young woman more interested in books than anything else is really boring. Those are two possible explanations for the affair, between an 18-year-old student and a 40-something farmer, at the center of Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything. Each or both might be true, but either way, it doesn't make for a particularly compelling or romantic drama.

That's mainly because the characters exist solely for the narrative here. Maria (Marlene Burow) is living in the countryside of what is at the very beginning of the story East Germany. She's lodging and working on a family's farm, since her mother recently divorced, fell upon some tough financial times, and started living with her former in-laws at a home in the nearby town. The arrangement ensures that Maria can complete her secondary school education (One wonders if the character's age has been changed in the subtitles to better accommodate moral and legal sensibilities in the United States), but the young woman regularly skips classes to spend the day perusing novels.

The setup seems fine enough. Maria does get to read, lying in bed and moving with the light to a chair in the attic she calls her bedroom. Her work on the farm appears to be minimal, since she routinely hides away indoors, takes trips into town to visit her family, and disappears for whole days without anyone really noticing or caring about her absence. She even has an affectionate and adoring beau in Johannes (Cedric Eich), the farmers' eldest son, who has big plans to move to a city, attend art school, and start a life with Maria.

It all seems fine, except that the reunification of Germany in 1990, the story's setting, has caused an overnight economic crisis in the eastern part of the country. Companies are closing. People are losing their jobs. Even the farm is at a crossroads of sorts, as they'll need to expand and become certified with the government to keep up—although it could be to the family's benefit.

Forget all that, though, because Daniela Krien (from whose novel the movie is adapted) and director Emily Atef's screenplay doesn't really care to explore the political, cultural, and economic ramifications of the story's setting. It's mainly so a long-absent family member, who has been living in self-inflicted exile in the West, can return, break down the situation, and start the process of various family members leaving the farm for a bit.

After all, Maria needs a bit of privacy and secrecy as soon as she meets or is re-introduced to Henner (Felix Kramer), a bachelor farmer on a neighboring plot of land. The gossip in the family and around town is that the loner is a womanizer, and while walking back to the farm, Maria is frightened by Henner's two dogs, which rush at her barking. The farmer lazily stops them, assures Maria they wouldn't hurt her, and comforts her by running his hand down her chest. At best, the moment is awkward, and at worst, it's downright creepy.

We'll go with less sinister option, if only because the rest of the story involves Maria sneaking away to Henner's farm, Henner making excuses to be alone with her, and the two eventually believing that a life of being alone together, having rough sex, and having a constant back-and-forth struggle for power in their relationship might be a fulfilling one. What, really, can be said about this idea, except that it's mainly about the sex (Poor Johannes left her in alone in Munich for a couple of hours to buy a camera, apparently spurring her toward the older man). The initial scenes fall into that terrain that's somewhere between uncomfortable and sinister, since Henner is quite forceful with the younger woman, and eventually, they become pretty routine.

They don't, however, feel like much of a justification or an explanation for the existence and potential endurance of this relationship. Two characters who basically subsist on sex can be fun for a bit (again, giving the start of the affair and Henner's motive for pursuing Maria the benefit of the doubt), and the bluntness of those scenes somewhat admirable, especially with the hints of the shifting power dynamic between the lovers. Those hints ultimately don't go anywhere.

As for any feeling beyond infatuation, though, the movie's sole scene of Henner explaining his mother's tragic history, a couple of Maria moping about when things go wrong, and one of him tending to her when she gets a fever don't achieve anything approaching romance here. Someday We'll Tell Each Other Everything is definitely attempting that, if the lovely, sun-drenched backdrop of the countryside and the hastily tragic ending are any indication. It feels as if the movie is only going through the motions, and the most effort it puts forth is when it comes to the motion of thrusting.

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