Undine movie review & film summary (2021)

A man named Johannes (Jacob Matschenz) and a woman named Undine (Paula Beer) sit at a café. He’s met someone else. After wiping a tear from her face, she tells him that he has no choice—he can’t leave her. If he refuses, she’ll have to kill him. This threat is taken surprisingly well—the first sign that things may not be exactly what they seem. She goes off to give a presentation on Urban Development in Berlin, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which is approaching its 30^th anniversary, and tells Johannes that he will be there when she returns. He’s not.

As Undine begins to panic, her eyes fall on an aquarium in the coffee shop just as a young man named Christoph (Franz Rogowski) comes into the room. He saw her presentation and wants to spend time with her. As her eyes focus on the figure of an underwater diver in the aquarium, Christoph’s awkwardness knocks him into the shelf and the glass breaks, sending shards, water, and fish all over the two of them. You won’t see a stranger meet-cute all year. And yet Beer and Rogowski’s chemistry is instantly palpable. As they lie on the floor, they look into each other’s eyes and you believe they are instantly connected. It’s a reminder of how increasingly rare on-screen chemistry is in modern film as these two have something you just don’t see that often anymore.

Of course, they begin a romance. Did I mention that Christoph is an underwater diver? Petzold films some fascinating underwater sequences, starting with Christoph’s encounter with a legendary catfish named Gunther. And then Christoph takes Undine to work with him one day and things get even weirder. “Undine” is a difficult film to recap in that it’s purposefully light on plot, choosing to play with themes and mood more than dialogue. A surprising portion of the movie consists of Undine’s presentations about history and architecture as Petzold tries (and sometimes misses) commentary on how we can change things, replace one building with another, but there are aspects of the human condition that remain the same. The legend of Undine dates back hundreds of years, not unlike some of the buildings still standing in Berlin. We can alter the architecture. We can tear down the wall. But the history and the mythology remain, just under the placid surface of the water. And we can replace one boyfriend with another, but it’s not always that easy.