Everytime is a film that feels alive.
Written by Paige Irwin
While writing about this film, I can not stop thinking about one of my favourite Bob Dylan lyrics: "I’ll see you in the stars above, in the tall grass and the ones I love, you’re gonna make me lonesome when you go."
Now, after a screening filled with tears and time to think, I am unafraid to claim that Everytime is a nearly perfect movie. Sandra Wollner’s newest feature has made its way from Austria to TIFF, and I could not be more grateful that I had the chance to see this beautiful film. Everytime follows Ella (Birgit Minichmayr, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer), her daughter Melli (Lotte Keiling), and her deceased daughter's boyfriend, Lux (Tristán López), as they grapple with the tragic loss of the girl they loved dearly. I have seen many films about grief, and what stands out the most to me about Everytime is how the film feels so lively.
It is full and resplendently alive in its depiction of death. Jessie (Carla Hüttermann), the late daughter of the film's lead, Ella, can be felt throughout the movie long after her passing. The trees are alive, the ocean breathes, and the city is full of life.
Presented in Everytime is the idea that the people we love live on through us; they live in the sun shining on the mountains and the movement of clouds. Deeply appreciated in this film is the understanding that grief isn’t something that stays with you; it is something that lives within you. It becomes a new part of your life; this film doesn’t depict grief as an affliction, but as a new way of being. Life in the aftermath of a tragedy will simply never be the life you knew before. This is but one of the many ways that those we loved continue to live on within us.
On a technical level, Everytime is nothing but excellent. The score and soundscape are astonishing and bring the experience of viewership to another level. It is suffocating and full of dread when necessary, before turning around and filling your lungs with air. An aspect that was absolutely spellbinding is the cinematography. Lingering shots on doorways and photographs were so haunting that they will sit with me for weeks. And there is a moment bursting with creativity, where Minecraft gameplay genuinely caused my heart to drop.
As a writer and director, Sandra Wollner achieves something extraordinary. Elements of brutal, devastating realism and magical surrealism are effortlessly woven together to create the effect of eternity. By the time the credits roll, Everytime has made time seem as flexible and free-moving as the wind, as the waves crashing over the rocks.
Minichmayr delivers an astounding lead performance, portraying the darkest feelings of grief and loss with subtlety and depth. Operating with restraint, Birgit portrays a grief that lives underneath her skin. She does not kneel weeping at her daughter's grave, but in the very way she holds her face and her body, it is immensely clear how much she is suffering. Then, when she finally breaks down, she nearly crushes your heart with her own hands. Her co-stars Tristan López, Lottie Keiling, and Carla Hüttermann further root the film in its realism, with gut-wrenching and naturally excellent performances that refuse to let you go or take a step back from this family dynamic.
Before concluding, I feel the need to state again: Everytime is a film that feels alive. At any point, it felt as if I was with them. In moments where a shot lingers, and we are existing purely in the emotion of a character, it is as if time stopped and I was no longer just watching a film, but sharing in a moment of grief. My advice to a viewer is to shut down your desire to rationalize. When the final thirty minutes of the film arrive and time and reality become more dynamic, allow yourself to experience it within the world of feeling, rather than sense and rationality. Finally, as somebody who has seen a lot of films about grief and loss, I confidently rank Everytime among the greatest of them all.
Everytime had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 15 and will have its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 29.
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