My Wonderful Wanda
Director: Bettina Oberli
Winner Audience Award Best Narrative - Vancouver International Film Festival
Don’t be misled by its saccharine title: Bettina Oberli’s dramatic comedy is many things - intelligent, funny, caustic, beautifully directed, and very cleverly structured, to name a few - but sugary sweet isn’t one of them. Wanda (Agnieszka Grochowska, perfect), the Polish single mother of two boys back in Poland, works as the live-in caretaker of rich Swiss businessman Josef (André Jung), 70. Josef is recovering from a stroke at his sumptuous lakeside family villa, and Wanda, being a no-nonsense pragmatist, makes extra cash by servicing him sexually. When she becomes pregnant, the haut-bourgeois family - Josef’s wife Elsa (an amazing Marthe Keller), brittle daughter Sofie (Birgit Minichmayr, also great), and bird-loving son Gregi (Jacob Matschenz) - comes apart at the seams…
Winningly humane, especially for an often biting satire on the haves vis-à-vis the dignified have-nots, Oberli’s comedic drama is an astutely balanced (it is, indeed, "vis-à-vis" not "versus") consideration of themes of adoption, abandonment, and other universal family concerns. The great soundtrack adds another level to what is already a very pleasurable film. –Vancouver International Film Festival
Winningly humane, especially for an often biting satire on the haves vis-à-vis the dignified have-nots, Oberli’s comedic drama is an astutely balanced (it is, indeed, "vis-à-vis" not "versus") consideration of themes of adoption, abandonment, and other universal family concerns. The great soundtrack adds another level to what is already a very pleasurable film. –Vancouver International Film Festival
My Wonderful Wanda is a Zeitgeist Films release in association with Kino Lorber. Coming in 2021 to theaters and virtual cinemas. To book this film please contact Nancy Gerstman or Emily Russo.
