What Marielle Knows Review
What Marielle Knows (2025) Film Review from the 24th Annual Tribeca Film Festival, a movie directed and written by Frédéric Hambalek, and starring Julia Jentsch, Felix Kramer, and Laeni Geiseler.
Adulthood is difficult, and the relationships we maintain are often sticky, to say the least. Domesticity is sometimes a facade we maintain to protect those under our protection, especially our children. What Marielle Knows presents a dilemma that will likely hit home for many of its viewers: what if our children saw and heard everything we did throughout our day?
The premise doesn’t exactly hold together when examined closely, but that doesn’t really matter, as Hambalek’s movie is interested not in playing with how Marielle (Geiseler), the daughter of Julia (whose actress is also named Julia) and Tobias (Felix Kramer), is able to function while seeing everything her parents see and do. Does she only experience the important things that they do, such as when her mother, Julia, aggressively flirts with her co-worker? Or does she also see the boring parts, such as when her father, a professional artist who works for a book publisher, is calmly and quietly working for hours on end? Does she see them at the same time, or do they come in bursts, like intermittent radio frequencies?
These questions are not asked, answered, or addressed in any way by the movie, which establishes the premise as quickly as possible in order to demonstrate how people act in the face of accountability. Marielle sees her father’s outburst when his art is rejected by his superiors, who, he feels, do not understand his work, and hears every dirty, scandalous word her mother says and hears. Julia is quick to deny the accusations, but soon ceases to care. So what if her husband knows she wants to cheat on him? As far as she’s concerned, the marriage has developed enough, and she couldn’t care less if he chose to have an affair of his own.
The actors are very comfortable in their roles, and for a movie that is essentially just three people talking, that is perhaps the most important element. Young Laeni Geiseler radiates innocence and repression as Marielle, and we rarely see her perspective, as we are meant to follow and sympathize with her parents, trapped in a marriage that has long ago left its halcyon days, and disgusted by their professional lives. Julia acts out of her own self-interest, and her frustration is palpable. How much has she sacrificed for her family? It’s compelling that she simply has zero interest in preserving things or accepting her husband’s entreaties to fix things, and that dissolution is at the movie’s core. Why do we maintain things that make us unhappy?
At a brisk 86 minutes, What Marielle Knows feels a little too long, and lacks in visual variety. This reviewer would have liked a little bit more definition for its characters, but it was still worth a watch, if only for the reflection it offers to our own lives.
Rating: 6.5/10
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