Was Marielle weiss
Germany 2025

Opening 17 Apr 2025

Directed by: Frédéric Hambalek
Writing credits: Frédéric Hambalek
Principal actors: Mehmet Atesci, Laeni Geiseler, Julia Jentsch, Felix Kramer, Moritz von Treuenfels

It’s not often when viewing a German-language film in a German movie theater that the audience breaks out spontaneously in horrified laughter. But that was exactly the response of the squirming audience, including myself, to this clever dark comedy.

Julia (Julia Jentsch) and Tobias (Felix Kramer), a seemingly happily married professional couple have an enviable life. Living in their posh modern home with their teenage daughter Marielle (Laeni Geiseler), they at least keep up the pretense that their lives are perfect.

One fateful day, though, everything changes. At the office a bored Julia sneaks off with her hunky co-worker Max (Mehmet Ateşçi). They smoke illicit cigarettes together as foreplay to an explicit X-rated verbal flirt which would make any eavesdropper blush bright red. Meanwhile Tobias leads a very awkward team meeting at the publishing company. The young, charismatic Dr. Sören Marx (Moritz Treuenfels) sways the other team members to nix Tobias’s choice for a book cover. Humiliated and looking wimpy, Tobias gives in to the team. Neither Julia nor Tobias would admit to each other or to anyone else that their day had been something they would not be proud of. That night at dinner, daughter Marielle questions her father about his bad day at the office. In denial, his recounting of the team meeting casts him as the macho marketing genius. Marielle then asks her mother about her cigarette smoking, which of course she adamantly denies. But it makes her wonder just what else her daughter may know about her talking dirty with her potential partner-in-crime, Max. Marielle has a confession to make to her parents. Her very best girlfriend had slapped her hard in the face and now she has suddenly developed telepathic powers to overhear everything her parents are saying and, perhaps, thinking. She reveals that she knows the details of how her parents’ day has gone. Mistrustful but somehow very cautious, before getting into bed Tobias speaks French with his wife, hoping that somehow Marielle can’t really overhear and understand all their conversations. She can, even in French.

Tobias and Julia aren’t the least bit pleased discovering that their daughter has telepathic powers. First, they behave exemplarily. Then in defiance, they stray from the straight and narrow and become their worst selves. Marielle remains a vague character who doesn’t even seem to relish her gift of glorified eavesdropping.

It’s the audience who appreciates Was Marielle weiß, watching the shiny family façade slowly crack. It is a delightfully humorous, scurrilous film, and the amused audience is secretly relieved it could never happen to them. (Pat Frickey)