From early on, I get the feeling that Sandra Wollner's Everytime isn't just a film about the contemplation on grief.
It's an unexpected cinematic journey like no other. It's certainly one of the most moving and poignant examinations of the technology-driven contemporary society and how we grieve.
It starts on the eve of a family vacation. Ella (Birgit Minichmayr of Maren Ade's Everyone Else) is seen frantically pushing her two daughters, teenager Jessie (Carla Hüttermann) and young Melli (Lotte Shirin Keiling), to pack in their tiny Berlin apartment. Jessie and her boyfriend Lux (Tristan Lopez) can't get any private moments while studying, due to Melli's constant interruptions, since they share a cramped bedroom with bunk beds.
Through conversation, we gather they are going to Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where Jessie vaguely remembers vacationing there with her parents as a child. At night, Jessie sneaks out of the apartment to go to the disco with Lux. They share some drugs while dancing blissfully with the pulsating music.
The young couple walk on the railroad tracks and Jessie looks back, staring into space. Omen? Perhaps. High on drugs? Likely. Looking into the past/future? Possible. They end up on the roof of the apartment building. In an almost hallucinogenic sequence where Jessie and Lux are seen from a distance with a long lens, the unthinkable happens as Jessie falls while filming birds flying with her phone.
The whole sequence is bathed in the rising sun, with frantic camera movements and an electronic score. It's a breathtaking scene (shot by cinematographer Gregory Oke, who also shot Aftersun, which shares thematic similarities) that is unbearably tragic and devastating.
A few months have passed. Lux is back from an overseas summer trip and has a new girlfriend. But somehow the three -- Ella, Melli and Lux -- who are left to deal with guilt and grief, bond together. Ella and Melli show up at Lux's birthday. Lux shows up at a family gathering of Ella's ex-husband's family. Lux obsessively listens to the messages Jessie left on his phone.
Melli still texts emojis to Jessie, as if waiting for some sort of response. Lux and Melli play Minecraft together, just like they used to with Jessie, in a room with her photos and personal items still lingering everywhere. They watch glitchy home videos of a family vacation trip to Tenerife that features Jessie as a toddler.
Lux's friends make jokes about why he still hangs out with Jessie's family. Stricken with guilt, he breaks down in Ella's arms one day. In one of the most poignant scenes, Ella asks Lux for the same drugs Jessie took to experience what her daughter experienced on her last day.
Then Ella suddenly decides to go on vacation to Tenerife with Melli and Lux in the middle of the night. She wakes them up -- Lux was sleeping over, on the couch -- and hurriedly into the cab to the airport.
This is where things go bonkers. On the beach front hotel with the tidal pool, we see three of them having a good time from a bird's eye view. The colors of the deep green pool contrast with the people in colorful swimsuits. They take a hike to the highest point of the volcanic peak of the island, where they can see the harbor down below. The rocky terrain resembles the ones in Minecraft that Jessie used to play. Ella breaks down in tears and Melli consoles her, while Lux watches them helplessly.
We witness the past bleeding into the present: the same girl (Jessie as a toddler) from the home movie is found at exactly the same location, playing with the same toy. Things get surreal: we see an empty hotel and beaches as Melli braves the powerful waves alone, looking for help. We see local kids shooting a flair gun into the sun. We see Minecraftified, square-shaped sun on the horizon.
Then Melli's narration kicks in, telling us the aftermath of the trip, how memory fades, and how they drifted apart over time. All three actors -- Minichmayr, Lopez and young Keiling -- are excellent as people dealing with the devastating loss differently.
Everytime is a wondrous film that evolves into the most unexpected, genre-defying ways. The film charts beyond the idea of physical and spiritual realms usually associated with films about grief and remembrance. It illustrates a fitting grieving process in our digital, virtual world, yet is deeply moving and emotionally resonant. It is one of the year's best.
