『Even When Everything Seems Perfect, the Heart Is Not』
π₯ Film Overview
π¬ Title: Everything Is Wonderful (2017)
π Country: πΊπΈ USA
π️ Genre: Drama / Psychological / Female Narrative
π️ Production: Buenos Dias Productions
⏳ Running Time: 75 minutes
π’ Director: Pia Mechler, Co-director: Stephanie Angel
π️ Screenplay: Pia Mechler
πΊ Platform: Vimeo on Demand, Amazon Prime Video
π©πΌ Cast: Pia Mechler – Lena
Tonia Sotiropoulou – Maria
𧩠In-Depth Story Analysis (Spoilers)
π· Sharing the ‘Perfect Dissatisfaction’
Lena and Maria come from different backgrounds and circumstances, but they share a fundamental commonality — a deep dissatisfaction with their current lives.
- Lena: Trapped Perfection — Financially secure and outwardly flawless, Lena’s life is marked by monotony and a loss of meaning. Her existence can best be described as “Everything but Nothing.”
- Maria: The Conflict Between an Unfulfilled Dream and Reality — Having come to New York to pursue her dream of becoming an actress, Maria now works as a waitress and faces bitter disappointment. Her dissatisfaction stems from the gap between “who she wants to be” and “who she is.”
Both women are lost in their own ways, unable to find meaning in their lives. They recognize this shared sense of “perfect dissatisfaction” in one another, forming an intense bond.
π Mutual Dependence and the Trigger of Escape
Their friendship deepens dramatically after Lena discovers her husband’s affair, becoming a relationship rooted in mutual dependence.
- Lena’s Savior: Betrayed by her husband, Lena turns to Maria for comfort and escape. Maria’s free-spirited impulsiveness becomes both a release valve for Lena’s suppressed emotions and a trigger for her desire to break out of her stifling life.
- Maria’s Source of Energy: Through Lena, Maria finds a fleeting sense of being needed and having purpose, while also gaining emotional and financial space for her own escapism. Lena’s near-obsessive dependence temporarily fuels Maria’s unstable sense of self.
Although their shared transgressions bring them closer, these moments of escape are not a constructive path to self-confrontation but rather a wasteful means of evading reality.
π Destructive Patterns and the Absence of Growth
Their relationship fails to generate true healing or growth; instead, it amplifies each woman’s destructive tendencies.
- Repetitive Dysfunction: Lena continually ruins relationships and escapes from discomfort, while Maria repeats cycles of unstable romance and disappointment. Being together helps them temporarily forget their pain, but they soon fall back into their old dysfunctional patterns, suggesting that they are temporary narcotics for each other, not real solutions.
- The Limits of Empathy: Their friendship is based more on shared circumstances than genuine emotional empathy. When Maria faces humiliation at an audition or Lena struggles with family issues, they distract themselves with reckless adventures rather than offering genuine support.
- Friendship as an Escape: Their bond feels less like love or true friendship and more like a shared refuge from unbearable emptiness and anxiety. Even their escape to the Hamptons — despite its scenic beauty — fails to heal their inner void, symbolizing that their friendship cannot resolve their deeper issues.
π€ Anxious Solidarity and Modern Alienation
The relationship between Lena and Maria exemplifies what might be called “anxious solidarity” in contemporary Western society. They depend on each other and rebel together, yet every act of rebellion leads them back to a sense of personal isolation and loneliness.
Through these two European immigrant women, the film delivers a sobering truth: external perfection and freedom do not necessarily lead to inner fulfillment. Their friendship briefly sustains the illusion that “Everything Is Wonderful,” but that illusion quickly collapses back into the same dissatisfaction and emotional emptiness they were trying to escape.
π― Personal Rating
π Love Scene Intensity: ♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★
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