“There’s something else coming” in the cinema: Never be a housewife again

In the ranking of the most musical household appliances, fully automatic coffee machines would certainly take a lower place, especially Helga’s. Or is it only so discordant because Helga has recently noticed it? A single dissonance like her whole new life. Plus that overweight spider hanging from the ceiling. With this spider she will never be able to quietly drink her coffee acquired under acoustic pain. So: offensive!

Now, one might think that movie reviews that go into so much detail about the sound of espresso machines (and spiders) are either lousy movie reviews—or it’s a lousy movie. The latter can be denied. But people whose coffee machines always sound the same are guaranteed to be in the wrong film with “There’s another thing to come.”

Stuck in the floor, Helga thinks about her life

Sometimes the important things can only be said about the apparently unimportant ones. This is cinema. A remarkable director like Mareille Klein, who is presenting her second feature film with “There is still something” after her highly acclaimed debut “Dinky Sinky”, knows something like this. Incidentally, Helga doesn’t get the spider, it falls off the stool and breaks through the grille of your underfloor heating. And that’s where her foot is stuck now. Helga alone at home.

Not only Helga has a lot of time to think during her lonely night in the clamp of the heating shaft. And at some point you realize that this woman has never faced a ceiling spider alone. So far she has probably said “Beeernd! Are you coming?” called. Maybe her husband’s name was different. Either way, he’s gone now – missing in the most humiliating way.

It may be that with this film Mareille Klein wanted to erect a monument to a generation of women who will probably never exist again. Her generation of mothers, whose life knew only one common denominator: her husband. And the children of course. While the life of men – especially the successful ones – has always had many denominators, including female ones. That’s why he’s gone now.

The great Ulrike Willenbacher, a rather harsh type, can be seen in every scene, wearing “There’s something coming up”. Each of her gestures, her words reveals what has been important in the life of a middle-class middle-class wife: attitude! Never quite distinguishable from hypocrisy. (That’s also why she has to cry so much at night, imprisoned in her Heizgraben prison.) She finds her Eastern European cleaning help in the morning. cast foot!

The psychological precision of the director and her actors is wonderful. Willenbacher’s Helga is one of those women who doesn’t give strangers access to her realm without further ado, and now her Eastern European cleaning help also sends a man to replace her on vacation. His name is Ryszard, a Pole, a type most women tend to overlook. Especially (former) doctor’s wives.

(In nine Berlin cinemas)

Unfortunately, the substitute does not understand German, and before she has even started, Helga can already hear her washing machine running in the basement. “You can’t just ….!” He can. Ryszard is a maker. So it’s that easy to replace. As a wife, as a housewife. As a human?

Zbigniew Zamachowski plays Ryszard, and watching the tender approach of these two very different people is as funny as it is harrowing. And the reactions of Helga’s girlfriends – all of them the wives of important men – to the newcomers to Helga’s side. Side? In bed maybe, but not in broad daylight. Imogen Kogge can be seen here as the scheming friend Brigitte in a prime role. There’s more to come!

To home page