Spoilers Alert:
With STAND STILL Director Elisa Mishto has managed to create a film based around an angular main character who doesn’t always make things easy for her viewers. But accompanying her on her rocky journey is worth it. In the end, you understand their behavior better, no matter how seemingly senseless. We reveal more about this in our review.
A short appearance by Katharina Schüttler becomes one of many highlights in Elisa Mishto’s film “Standing Still”.
Although Mishto goes a bit far in telling a psychogram that is balanced on both sides (there is also always very oppressive background information about Agnes; for example, that she has a very difficult relationship with her own daughter – here, however, the director only scratches the surface ), Julie always remains in focus. And yet it is above all the intimate moments between the two women in which both influence each other’s world views and thus learn to perceive their surroundings with different eyes. That sounds a bit cliché, but it is repeatedly interrupted by strongly written individual scenes. A short appearance by Katharina Schüttler (“The wedding”) is the best example of this. The regular, cool conversations between Julie and her therapist always bring “Standing Still” back down to earth when it becomes apparent that the film could drift into complacency here and there. However, that doesn’t mean that the film doesn’t lack humor – it’s just that Elisa Mishto sprinkles it in so subtly that you wouldn’t even think of laughing out loud in the next moment, but rather think about the previous scene again then to think about whether you should smile for a moment, or whether the past moment was actually much, much more tragic.
Conclusion: An ambivalent psychogram of an ambivalent figure: This is how and no other way to provide an all-encompassing look at barely tangible mental illnesses. And Natalia Belitski is an absolute discovery!
“Stand Still” can be seen in USA cinemas from June 17th.
