Alle reden übers Wetter
Director: Annika Pinske
Writer: Annika Pinske, Johannes Flachmeyer
Cast: Anne Schäfer, Judith Hofmann, Marcel Kohler, Anne-Kathrin Gummich, Max Riemelt, Emma Frieda Brüggler, Sandra Hüller
Seen on: 7.7.2022

Plot:
Clara (Anne Schäfer) has returned to university after a long break and is now working on her PhD and teaching some classes. Her work eats up all her time, and she barely sees her daughter Emma (Emma Frieda Brüggler) who lives with her father. In practically stolen moments, Clara has an affair with a student (Marcel Kohler). With a deadline looming for a paper, Clara also has to go to her hometown for the weekend to celebrate her mother Inge’s (Anne-Kathrin Gummich) birthday. It gets to be a little much altogether.

Alle reden übers Wetter is a neat film that will speak to anybody who has grown a little too big for their hometown. It examines Clara’s situation with a sharp eye and manages to find the good with the bad.

Alle reden übers Wetter does not tell a revolutionary story. Coming back home into a small twon after having lived in the big city for a while is something we have seen many characters in films do. And we’ve also seen women struggling to have it all. But the way Pinske not only connects these two things, but portrays them makes us feel Clara’s situation quite accutely, also thanks to Schäfer’s excellent performance.

I work at university myself, though not in a scientific position. Part of why I am not working on my PhD is that I didn’t want to have the life that Clara has: pushing 40, living in a shared apartment, working a precarious job with many hours in an environment that is quite treacherous if you’re not careful who you align yourself with and how. Pinske captures the many pressures that Clara faces there quite accurately, and it really is an indictment of academia.

And yet, there is no turning back for her. What used to be home is equally uncomfortable for Clara, and there is truth to what the villagers think: that Clara thinks she is better than them now that she’s at university. She certainly doesn’t feel like much connects her with her hometown anymore, and her aggressive and entirely unsuitable attempts to get to deep truths with her mother are doomed to fail.

Clara is unmoored in her own life, floating around and hoping to connect with something substantial – which is ultimately why she likes science. In the end, she does find a connection when four generations of her family’s women come together and just are. This moment gives her strength to go back to her routine – and maybe find more calm there as well.

It’s a very nice ending to a film that maybe isn’t great, but is really good for a debut feature. I’ll be looking forward to waht Pinske does next.

Summarizing: nicely done.