‘What Marielle Knows’ review: Stylish, sly German comedy starring Julia Jentsch

Dir/scr: Frederic Hambalek. Germany. 2025. 87mins.

Ever since a good friend slapped her face within the playground, 13-year-old Marielle has gained the flexibility to see and listen to all the things her mother and father do and say, all day and all evening. The rise of parental surveillance is turned on its head on this fashionable, thought-provoking German comedy which runs engagingly with its high-concept premise with out as soon as reducing the bar.

Handsome viewers pleaser 

One of many issues that makes What Marielle Is aware of greater than a teenager-parent spin on a play-it-for-laughs mindreading comedy like Nancy Meyers’ What Ladies Need, is the way in which its story is deepened and given resonance by the setting. That is an anodyne city world of boxy homes, workplaces and faculties, open-plan but additionally alienating, in a German metropolis (but it surely could possibly be wherever in Europe) the place supposedly completely satisfied, well-off, cultured individuals appear to be simply going by the motions. That ought to assist this handsome viewers pleaser enchantment to distributors and audiences alike.

Hambalek’s script is a talented tumbler, in a position to flip from drama to hilarity and again once more in seconds. It helps that seasoned German actors Julia Jentsch and Felix Kramer discover a plausible approach into their roles as Marielle’s mother and father Julia and Tobias, making this really feel like an actual marriage in disaster with out sacrificing any of the comedian timing. The viewers is primed by a tour-de-force opening scene during which Julia and lascivious work-colleague Max (Mehmet Atesci) dirty-talk, with out truly carrying by on their phrases, throughout a cigarette break. The scene is humorous sufficient in its personal proper, but it surely will get a second wind quickly after when Julia realises that her daughter noticed and heard all the things.

When deeply shy solely youngster Marielle reluctantly reveals her new-found potential to her mother and father within the cool, soulless modernist dwelling the three share, disbelief is, in fact, the primary response. Then comes deceit. Julia is adamant she doesn’t smoke. Insecure Tobias is equally certain that he didn’t let a cocky junior colleague lead a mutiny in opposition to him throughout a piece assembly at his publishing firm. Each are mendacity, as a result of we and Marielle noticed and heard what occurred – however don’t all mother and father have idealised pictures they wish to mission to their children? 

After the lies comes mutual devastation then deviousness, corresponding to when Tobias guarantees to let Marielle have her pill again if she tells him what mum stated earlier that day. Lastly, the self-censorship and the aware performances arrive, together with some really humorous moments like a hilarious mother-daughter intercourse training lesson.

What grounds the story is Marielle herself. Whereas she doesn’t have probably the most display time, she is the movie’s emotional compass – and he or she isn’t performed for laughs. Laeni Geiseler places in an plausible efficiency as a confused, taciturn adolescent who’s having a troublesome sufficient time of issues as it’s, with out this undesirable mind-reading present.

What Marielle Is aware of is an eloquent metaphor for the surveillance tradition we’ve signed off on, but it surely’s additionally a neat reverse coming of age story – one which forces two adults to lastly develop up. Jagged, high-volume snatches of Beethoven and Schubert string quartets act as chapter dividers and underline the steely, severe spine of a comedy that’s bathed in pale wintry gentle.