Austria – The Framing Device

Bernhard Wenger’s feature debut begins completely out of context as a golf cart is engulfed in flames. Two people run into frame unleashing fire extinguishers until the blaze is out and golfers slowly walk over commending the duo on a heroic job well done.

We will soon learn the man is Matthias (Albrecht Schuch, All Quiet on the Western Front, System Crasher) and he works for a company called My Companion, not your regular ‘friend for hire’ agency headed by his boss and friend David (Anton Noori). Matthias fulfils the needs, wants and desires of complete strangers, whether putting out inexplicable golf fires, attending outdoor concerts with older women or posing as the pilot father of a small child, moustachioed Matthias is the star of the company, his success evident in the glowing reviews he receives for his “work” and obvious wealth symbolised by the immaculate house he shares with girlfriend Sophia (Julia Franz Richter).

The problem is Matthias is so good at his job that he ceases to exist beyond a surface level in everyday life, he needs cueing up for everything, when to speak, when to appear sympathetic and when to act. Everything is a construct and performative and Sophia has had enough – “You don’t seem real anymore” – and leaves him. What follows is an existential calamity onscreen. The male in crisis here is handsome, polite, patient, considerate, professionally adept and yet socially inept it is laugh-out-loud hilarious and so cringeworthy, the whole body flinches, also a little heart breaking. Matthias is played to perfection by Schuch whose comic timing is sublime made all the more inviting by Albin Widner’s pristine cinematography, visual humour coolly framed and aesthetically pleasing.

Wenger’s assured and absurdist satire takes a swipe at corporation and capitalism. The unpredictability of technology beautifully depicted during the scene when Alexa fails to understand his request for a specific song and declares it will chose a song for him and decides upon ‘Clap Your Hands’ which, of course, interferes with the electricity and clap-activated overhead lights.

Here, the world is a microcosm and life is just one long performance while posing “serious” questions about what constitutes as art – if that happens to be a naked man dousing himself in paint and throwing himself head first into a blank canvas on stage, then fill your boots. To watch the almost-perfect albeit passive man – which in itself is a breath of fresh air from, what feels like, the multitude(s) of male toxicity onscreen – regress and slowly unravel is heart-stinging and, though it’s kind of mean, a laugh-out-loud joy in a film that is tonally perfect from that opening sequence on the green. The dénouement of which is *chef’s kiss*.

Peacock, visually, is reminiscent of Joachim Trier’s work – complete with a Norwegian love interest – shot through with the dead-pan sensibility associated with other Scandi cinema specifically early Östlund or even Lanthimos (when there was a Greek ‘weird’ Wave stirring). Though, by the end, it feels as excruciating (and amusing) as something like Toni Erdmann (2016), whereby the lead is resigned to a specific way of life but then experiences a rebirth, of sorts, which presents a whole new approach to navigating the world.

Matthias can be a your hero, companion, a son, everything for you… but just not as himself.

Policewoman Andrea (Birgit Minichmayr) wants a divorce. Her ex-husband Andi (Thomas Stipsits) is the life and soul of any (birthday) party but they want different things. He wants her back, to continue drinking excessively, embarrassing her in public and she wants a divor… well, you get the picture. A new job awaits her in the capital St Pölten, she’ll be a Detective Inspector interacting with “real criminals” and not wasting time on the side of the road catching speeding violators.

After celebrating partner Georg’s (Thomas Schubert) birthday in which Andi makes yet another desperate attempt at getting her back, this time imploring her to arrest him, revving his car engine while intoxicated. She confiscates his car keys and makes him walk home. Later, while she’s driving home her father calls and she takes her eyes off the road for a second and accidentally mows down Andi. She tries to save him and when it is futile, she gets back in her vehicle and drives off. Only when Georg hammers on the door to tell her that her estranged husband is dead at the wheel of RE teacher and ex-boozer – now an imbiber of black tea and milk only – Franz Leitner (Josef Hader) does Andrea realise that she may just get away with it.

Andrea Gets a Divorce is a quietly charming little film, an Austrian dramedy which actually has much to say beyond its humour (though not quite the biting satire we have come to expect from Austria) and dose of melancholy. Whether commenting on the effects of alcohol – Austria changed its alcohol laws in 2019 – without being judge and jury, casual racism within a rural town, or the sly inherent sexist commentary a woman faces, and a police officer at that. Andrea’s weight, marital status, biological clock are all up for discussion, at one point she is even likened to an SS officer. She’s a single woman bearing the burden of responsibility for everything it seems and not merely straddling her new role as a law-breaker. Finding balance and prioritising themselves is not always the natural way of things for a woman and this film depicts the push, pull and self-doubt beautifully. Or as remarked early on, “the women are moving away and the men are getting weirder.”

Minichmayr is excellent as the closed-off lead, she who rarely smiles while struggling with her guilt and sense of justice. Writer-director Hader follows up his 2017 debut Wild Mouse with this and is delightful in support as forgetful Franz whose ill-gotten culpability threatens to ruin him in a haze of late-night disco dancing and G&Ts. While it could have been easy to write off these people as simpletons from a small town, Hader avoids leaning into clichéd stereotypes. There is some complexity and layering to these characters who are settled in their mundane provincial little lives, somewhat fearful of change which tends to be true of most quaint little places.

All roads are paved with good intentions, or just the one in and out of town which is shot perfectly and bookends a sweet film. Andrea Gets a Divorce is a wonderfully wry and sensitive piece of storytelling about life and friendship, forgiveness and guilt surrounding a divorce and bereavement at losing a whole person or that sense of self. It is woven together with an amusing if deadpan sense of humour, often callous but rarely alienating. The joke punchline being the very film title itself.