A One Mann’s Movies review of “My Wife Cries”. (From the 2026 London Film Festival). (2026, 1.5*, ’15’).
Original title: Meine Frau weint
There always seems to be one film that really rubs me up the wrong way, so I hope with My Wife Cries I’ve gone and got that out of the way on the first day. For this was a serious trial of patience to sit through.
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
Thomas (Vladimir Vulević) is called home from work by his wife Carla (Agathe Bonitzer) after she’s involved in a road accident. But what disturbs him most is the issue that is really troubling her – a disconnect that spills into their relationship.
Certification:
UK: NR; US: NR. (This film has not yet received a classification by the BBFC, but I would expect it to be a 15 based on scenes of nudity.)
Talent:
Starring: Vladimir Vulević, Agathe Bonitzer, Birte Schöink.
Directed by: Angela Schanelec.
Written by: Angela Schanelec.
Running Time: 1h 32m.
Review:
Positives:
- I’m really struggling…. and this mainly comes down to the cinematography. There are a few really nicely lit shots; there is a nice one-er, a camera-tracked shot with Thomas and Carla walking down a road, and there are two nice tracking shots involving Carla and then Carla and her friend Claudia riding bikes. (Perhaps I liked these just because the camera was at least moving!)
Negatives:
- This film is sloooooooooooooow to the point of inducing insanity. Most shots are static and just stay on the screen, with virtually nothing happening, for an eternity. In any other film, you’d get a three second shot of a building site before cutting to the next scene. Not here! We have about a minute of the building site scene: I KNOW what a freaking building site looks like!
- The dialogue is stilted, artificial and bone-crushingly inane. This includes chat about nothing at all between two office workers. At times a character, normally Thomas, will launch into a massive soliloquy that goes on and on and on. One of these, I thought might be directed at us, the viewer in a 4th-wall-breaking way, before we eventually cut to see Clara sitting there ‘behind us’.
- It comes to something when: a) the most entertaining part of the whole film is listening to a brass band in the park play a tune and b) the most dramatic part of the film is when it starts to rain and the band have to run for cover!
- Characters get randomly shoved into the mix: a Nobel-nominated writer is shown picking up his kid from the kindergarten where Clara and Claudia (an – inexplicably – zombie-like Clara Gostynski). This seems to have no bearing to the plot, yet we see him at the end of the film playing softball on a beach with the other characters. Baffling.
Summary Thoughts:
There are, I’m sure, a subset of viewers who will view this as being an ‘arthouse classic’. But I am a long, long way from that subset. I am tempted to use the ‘b-word’ (boring) for this one and even the dreaded ‘p-word’ (pretentious). I have never walked out of a film before, but for this one I was so so tempted to. My friend ‘On’ Bashir (of the Movie Bread Club podcast) who I saw this with shared the same view: “if I’d been sat on the aisle instead of mid-row, I might have been off!”
From my perspective, this film has a big red sticker on it, reading “AVOID!”.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGdkl5DTSX4.
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