Alice is a free-lance copywriter and editor living in Berlin. She is without a job – temporarily as she likes to emphasise when talking to friends and parents.
But in reality her situation is threatening to become permanent. In order to get unemployment benefits she has to enroll in dull government-funded re-training measures while trying to apply for jobs. One way of earning some money is taking part in marketing research surveys. But the catch is that she is only paid in petrol vouchers, and another catch is that she doesn’t have a car. The catch of her entire situation is that she has to pretend all is well to make a favourable impression, when she is actually getting more and more desperate.
Eva Löhbau, known for her lead role in Maren Ade’s
The Forest for the Trees, is once more brilliant in the role of a woman who will make stupid mistakes, get herself entangled in all sorts of lies, gets frustrated and angry but won’t be defeated. The film follows her endeavours and tedious routine with close attention to detail and poignantly conveys the absurdity and precarity of the freelancer existence.
Germany 2018, colour, 120 mins. With English subtitles.
Directed by Lucia Chiarla. With Eva Löbau, Beniamino Brogi, Veronika Nowag-Jones, Axel Werner, Julia Sophie Mink, Constanze Priester, Christiane Schmidt, Nils Schulz, Anna Bardorf, Bettina Lohmeyer
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