Director: Vanessa Jopp
Starring: Nora Tschirner, Alexander Fehling, Ulrich Thomsen, Ella Rumpf, Claudia Eisinger, Katharina Gieron
Distributor: German Film Festival
Runtime: 123 mins. Reviewed in May 2021

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Rating notes: Unclassified

The space in this story is cyberspace. And, it is a film about relationships.

This is a German film, set in Hamburg, with interesting views of the city, especially the water and a vast bridge. But, it is very much an interior story – a story of a relationship between a man and woman, and questions of intimacy, real and online.

Some of us remember relationships through correspondence, putting pen to paper and writing to penfriends. (Are they a thing of the past?) The films of the 20th century often have their characters spending a lot of time on the phone. The 21st-century still has phones but how differently they are employed! Well, though it can be voice communication, the quick and instant communication is back to words (abbreviated and accompanied by emojis), constant texting. (And how really romantic can that be?)

The central character is Leo (Fehling), a linguist, takes pride and delight in words. His life seems to be perfect ­– there are plans to propose to his girlfriend, and his job is secure … However, the girlfriend confesses to be in love with someone else. He feels shattered. While receiving some support from his sister, he is distant from his mother, even despite visits, and then the pathos of her death.

The film begins with a text message. A woman has texted Leo to cancel her subscription to a magazine. And later she repeats this. His reply is that she has got the wrong address. And, this seems to be one of the most unlikely beginnings of a personal relationship. But it is. One interesting feature is that we hear the voice of the complainant, Emma (Tschirner), whom he nicknames Emmi but do not see her until 40 minutes into the film. We discover that she is married to Bernhard (Thomsen) an orchestra conductor and his stepmother to his two children. We see her, know what she looks like, how she behaves, her place in her family, love for her husband. Leo has none of this experience.

While there were a lot of scenes of phone calls in those old films, here there is more of a focus on thumbs – rapidly moving, texting, texting, texting, phones buzzing at all hours, anytime, anywhere, light shining in the night, reverberations during the day. And the two have never met, have never seen each other, the relationship, an online intimacy, still with characteristics of anonymity.

So, how do we respond? It probably depends on our attitudes towards this kind of cyber communication, on our own practice and whether we take this for granted – or in our reactions against this personal/interpersonal communication.

There is some drama in the unfolding of the stories, the self-revelations (gradual as they are), the need for some kind of real and personal encounter. By the end, that is what we are left with – what have we been wanting for Leo and Emma, what we think they need, what do we think they deserve?

(And, do we now and in the future have to adapt to the emotional, psychological, social consequences of this kind of communication?)