The 73rd International Film Festival has begun in Berlin – Meduza will follow its main premieres. The opening film was Rebecca Miller’s romantic comedy “She Came to Me” – about two teenagers in love, or rather, about their parents, who themselves cannot understand themselves. Starting the festival with a rom-com is a rather unexpected move for the Berlinale, which usually focuses on the current agenda. Film critic Anton Dolin explains why this decision turned out to be the most appropriate.
The Berlinale has a reputation as the most politicized film festival, where everyone is only interested in the “agenda”, whatever that word means. 2023 could not be an exception. Solidarity with warring Ukraine and rebellious Iran, a ban on films from Iran and Russia in any way connected with the state, numerous political discussions, Vladimir Zelensky’s speech at the opening ceremony are the dominant features of this year’s film festival. That big shock, and exceptionally pleasant, was the picture of the discovery.
What Zelensky spoke about in Berlin – Meduza online
Rebecca Miller’s She Came to Me is a romantic comedy that’s flawlessly modern and kind of old-fashioned at the same time. Guess the management to start the festival a couple of days earlier, the premiere would coincide with Valentine’s Day – and it would be more appropriate than ever. It’s okay: many will celebrate the holiday with pleasure by watching “She Came to Me” in a year.
Bizarre, for many reasons, original and unformatted picture touches the nerve and is able to irritate or puzzle the critic, but touch the ingenuous viewer. Intellectual Miller – a Yale graduate, writer, feminist, creator of The Ballad of Jack and Rose and The Private Life of Pippa Lee – decided to abandon the image of a highbrow representative of auteur cinema and made a film for the general public.
Rebecca Miller at the opening ceremony of the Berlinale in 2023
Isa Foltin / Getty Images
Location: New York, Brooklyn. Time is our day. At the heart of the intricate multi-figure intrigue is the traditional collision, Romeo and Juliet. She is 16, he is 18, they are classmates. Teresa (Harlow Jane) is a girl from a poor family of Polish immigrants, her mother earns by cleaning apartments. Julian (Evan Allison) – from a privileged family, the mother is a sought-after psychologist. Both are raised by caring stepfathers. What could have happened? Indeed, today teenagers determine their own destiny and take care of their body and soul better than adults. Especially when the love is mutual.
Rebecca Miller cleverly identifies two potential threats to any 21st century love story. The first is a panic fear of excessive emotionality, the “toxicity” of romantic love. One of the heroines of the film was even treated in a psychiatric clinic for her “romantic addiction”, but did not succeed. The second threat is the no less acute fear of violating legal borders. Because of her, Teresa’s stepfather, a court stenographer keen on historical reconstructions, decides to sue Julian for the abuse of a minor. The hero does not pay attention to the fact that his wife and adopted daughter are protesting.
The love of children is so pure and harmonious that the author is not very interested. The focus of Miller’s attention is directed to her peers – the current Montagues and Capulets, whose roles are played with obvious pleasure by brilliant artists.
Teresa’s mother (Polish Joanna Kulig from the Cold War) is so afraid that her daughter will repeat her mistake – getting pregnant and becoming a single mother – that it almost destroys the happiness of the young. Her husband (Brian dʼArcy James, Spotlight) himself somehow strangely glances at his stepdaughter, whose interests he so fanatically defends.
Julian’s craven mother (an unexpected comedic outing by Anne Hathaway, here reminiscent of Morticia Addams) suffers from the erotic fantasies of her patients and dreams of entering a convent: this seems to be a self-parody of Miller, whose father, like the heroine, was a Jew, and her mother was a Christian. And her depressive husband (Peter Dinklage’s best performance – at least outside of Game of Thrones) is an operatic composer who cares only about creative impasse and the failure to meet a prestigious theater order on time. Miller knows very well what she is shooting about, because her whole life has passed next to capricious and complex men of creative professions: she is the daughter of Arthur Miller and the wife of Daniel Day-Lewis.
Peter Dinklage and Anne Hathaway on the set of She Came to Me
SteveSands / New York Newswire / MEGA / Vida Press
“She Came to Me” is the title of an absurdist, but clearly breakthrough opera by the creator who overcame the crisis. The unexpected appearance of the muse, the most colorful character in the film, helped him. Katrina (the magnificent Marisa Tomei) is the owner of a cargo ship, a strong woman in overalls. It is she who is literally obsessed with the idea of romantic love. A chance meeting with a composer walking a bulldog becomes fatal for her. Once at the premiere of the opera, she recognizes herself in the heroine, but only caricatured: she lures men to her ship and hacks them with an ax. As it turns out later, in life, Katrina is not at all so terrible: the young lovers no longer rely on anyone, except for the amazing captain. Here She Came to Me voluntarily or involuntarily quotes Jean Vigo’s Atalanta, the finest of the old French love films.
Rom-com is one of the most conservative and manipulative film genres. Few people manage to revive him, but Miller did it. In her eccentric picture of love, not only all ages are submissive, but also professions, genders and temperaments. Love turns out to be the only worthy fuel for creativity, and therefore it is vital for both Old Believers and rebellious young people. Adding delusion to a tired and outdated genre, the director is not shy about the wildest plot twists, as her predecessors, the authors, were not afraid of them. comic operas about love, which certainly ended well.
By the way, the operas included in the film, with a clear parody, make a strong impression. Bruce Dessner from The National was responsible for the music and lyrics in them, in recent years he has been writing more and more for films (“Cyrano” with the same Dinklage, “Kamon kamon”, “Bardo”). That is, inspiration is not simulated – it is really caught in the air and transferred without loss to the auditorium. Perhaps this is the only possible “positive agenda” for a festival taking place during the war. Or at least a small consolation in the days of great disasters.
