Review: Everytime
- CANNES 2026: Sandra Wollner delivers a brilliantly directed, highly enigmatic and dizzying helter-skelter of a movie
"All the answers have been printed at the bottom of the page. To work out the root, you have to distinguish between the two cases." Contrary to expectations (a concept not altogether foreign to the director), it’s unlikely to be maths that Sandra Wollner is referring to at the beginning of her new film, the wholly intriguing and fascinating Everytime, which was unveiled in the 79th Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard line-up. In fact, the Austrian filmmaker has cooly and calmly orchestrated a staggering show of two parts, bordering on hypnotic or hallucinogenic and set beneath the summer sun in Berlin and, subsequently, Tenerife. It’s a journey through space-time, through memories, disappearances and reappearances, through signs and unspeakable echoes, woven into a narratively stunning and visually sublime cinematographic cloth which is, ironically, anchored in the unadulterated realism of everyday modern life.
"I can’t perform miracles ". Living alone with her two daughters - Jessie (Carla Hüttermann), who’s almost 17, and her little sister, Melli (Lotte Shirin Keiling), who isn’t backwards in coming forwards - Ella (Birgit Minichmayr) has packed their bags to set off on holiday the following day and is sorting out the final details by phone while her children bicker over a lack of privacy in their shared bedroom. Jessie’s school friend, Lux (Tristan López), is also passing through, and the two teens hook up later on for a night of partying which leads the film (without giving anything away) in an entirely different direction…
"You retreat, you circle around things, you try again." The director thrusts us into an expansive psychological realm from which her characters are unable to extract themselves, mired as they are in guilt and distress while trying to keep up appearances and to hold things together as best they can. But there’s a beacon, and a sun which refuses to set; a kind of breach which offers up a circular view of time, an opening into a fantasy world which Sandra Wollner introduces very patiently, by way of very long and incredibly sophisticated sequence shots (special mention should go to director of photography Gregory Oke). This well-balanced combination of elements allows her to make perfect use of the natural surrounds (especially deserted Berlin in the early morning, the cliffs in Tenerife, the sea horizon, the crashing of the waves, and the seaside hotel with its highly evocative external geometry) and the video game interiors. Like a deus ex machina playing with the darkest depths of the subconscious (by way of "bursts of laughter"), the director slowly leads the audience into a parallel world where miracles become possible, crafting a captivating film which disseminates subtle clues and secretly ushers in breathtaking twists and turns. Incredibly rich in all respects, Everytime is also a highly enigmatic movie, but that was no doubt the director’s intention as she overlaps past and present, like the shocks which rock our souls and open doors to parallel dimensions. It’s a simple idea, but it doesn’t really matter because the film primarily showcases the extraordinary ability of a director whose star is rising fast.
Everytime was produced by Panama Film (Austria) together with The Barricades (Germany). Charades are steering world sales.
(Translated from French)
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