Every Thing Will Be Fine

Far from a perfect film. But Wenders is trying to do new things within the confines of a pretty standard European art-film scenario, and the viewer can see he’s not approaching the material as though it’s rote; he’s really trying to use the camera to get through the feelings of loss the characters suffer.

This is one slow-ass "novel," in which no one ever cracks a joke and potentially melodramatic moments (a fairground ride collapse, the initial accident, a suicide attempt) are so painstakingly crafted to avoid splashiness that any momentum is killed. A little splashiness would have been most welcome.

The visually stirring format proves unable to lift the story and performances out of a prevailing, airless stupor.

Something is off with Every Thing Will Be Fine. Even for a movie about a writer detached from his emotions, it’s ponderous, like a lucid dream gone bad.

The years go fast but the minutes crawl in Wim Wenders’ new drama, filmed in murky 3-D so that, apparently, we can feel as if we’re living through a dozen dull years right along with its main character.

The premise, of a terrible event unleavened by the easy out of someone being at fault, should be prime fodder for Wim Wenders's brand of poetic regret.

Every Thing Will Be Fine is torturously slow and hopelessly mannered.