The novelist Tomas (James Franco) is the reserved type. During a blizzard he accidently runs over two young brothers with his SUV and the younger one dies. Tomas is not held legally responsible for the fatal accident but he falls into a deep depression and his relationship with is girlfriend suffers as a result. He overcomes the crisis with the help of the young boy’s mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg), achieves professional success and finds a new family. EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE is one of Wim Wender’s best films. It’s less about guilt and forgiveness as it is about the traces that are left behind by a serious crisis and how one’s life is changed. Wenders stages moments in which various situations suddenly rip the past into the present, in a way that is perhaps only possible using 3D format. In one such scene Tomas and his new girlfriend Ann and her daughter are at a retro amusement park. Ann and Tomas would like to move in together but are unsure how Ann’s daughter will react. She is more interested in going on the Ferris wheel. After the rainfall she sits alone in the gondola in front of the couple. A small boy turns in her direction with a toy gun and shoots. The parents watch as the gondola disappears, then the camera is lowers to the ground. Disaster looms but the family is back on the ground as the camera registers a false movement, a sudden turn, then the camera zooms in and at the same time presents a tracking shot, like in Hitchcocks VERTIGO, but shorter, more precise and with more room. Another accident, a woman was injured but no one we know. The feeling of old fears being conjured up again.

Tom Dorow