At certain times in Emily Atef’s eponymous adaptation of Daniela Krien’s novel “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything,” all one can hear is the irregular breathing of Maria (Marlene Burow). The molecules of oxygen leave the sprawling fields of rural Germany and hastily make their way through the young girl’s lungs, the surge of adrenaline in her bloodstream directly increasing the frequency of respiration. Adrenaline pumps through her blood as she rides her rickety bike through rural roads, feet strapped to both the pedals and flimsy leather sandals, and when she desperately runs back home to make it in time for dinner after losing track of time within the pages of a Dostoievski novel, which she devours as if sustenance.
Yet, nothing jolts adrenaline through Maria quite like being in the presence of Henner (Felix Kramer). The older man is one of the few remaining farmers in the once bustling small rural village where Maria lives with her boyfriend, amateur photographer Johannes (Cedric Eich), and his entire family. Welcomed into her partner’s farmhouse after her parents’ turbulent divorce, Maria becomes a surrogate daughter to Johannes’ loving mother, Marianne (Silke Bodenbender), who ushers the young girl with the care — and attention — she never experienced at home.
This warm welcome makes it even harder for Maria to realize she has become bewitched by her neighbor, a farmhand with a rough attitude and a bad drinking habit. They first meet when Henner drops by to fetch some groceries from Johannes’ family farm shop; Maria’s face is buried in a book as Marianne speaks about her to the man. Their next meeting is drenched in the tension of a catastrophe dodged by a bullet, the thrill of danger turning platonism into possibility.
Placed against the backdrop of the unification of Germany, “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” weaves a romance between a man far too accustomed to the ways of the past to embrace the future that comes knocking on his door — quite literally — in the shape of a young girl whose future will be nothing like the life he has once known. This cataclysmic divide, which places age not only as a physical barrier but as a historical one, adds a refined political layer to the incendiary romance that rapidly develops between the two.
As Henner pushes and pulls at every part of Maria’s body, it is both a feral attempt at fulfilling long-bottled desire and a subconscious plea to tear apart the tangible representation of a wave of change he so desperately tries to overlook. The camera lingers on Henner’s calloused hands as they make their way through Maria’s soft skin, the abyss between the two bridged in a hungry thrust. In the pulsating eroticism of expectation, Atef’s film drips with sensuality, the violent nature of their encounters contrasted with the bucolic settings of the village, situated right at the border between West and East Germany — an abyss once as uncrossable as the one between the lovers and now suddenly made bridge.
Had it kept prodding at the political parallels of 1990 Berlin and Maria and Henner’s romance, “Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything” would have sat beautifully at the intersection between the coming-of-age of a young woman and that of an old country. Instead, Atef opts to stretch out the story, stubbornly tugging at the corners of the narrative, expanding a tale rich in its metaphors until it becomes see-through. As the lovers go from stolen moments of nondescript carnal relief to entire afternoons spent in quiet intimacy, the nagging stains of predictability seep through what once felt excitingly rogue.
If nuance becomes a scarce commodity within the film, so does the presence of Johannes’ family, the characters Atef so caringly built during the first act, slowly disappearing within the confines of the overstretched central relationship. It is a shame, as Atef brings together an endlessly watchable cast, from the awkward George Harrison-looking Johannes nested within the naive aspirations of the well-loved to the pair of grandparents, who communicate exclusively through the charged glances exchanged by those who have shared a life. When together, Burrow and Kramer burn through frame and screen alike, their chemistry at once alluring and appalling, an incendiary rapport that only emphasizes the painfully placating nature of their farewell. [C+]
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