What a Feeling Movie Review

『Rediscovering Love and Life in Midlife: A Warm Queer Romantic Comedy Filled with Hope and Humor』

🎥 Film Overview

🎬 Title: What a Feeling (2024)
🌍 Country: 🇦🇹 Austria
🎞️ Genre: Queer / Romantic Comedy / Drama
🗓️ Production and Release: Independent production, 2024, Feature film
⏳ Running Time: Approximately 110 minutes
📢 Director: Kat Rohrer
🖋️ Screenplay: Kat Rohrer

👩‍💼 Cast: Caroline Peters – Marie Theres
Proschat Madani – Fa

🧩 Story Deep Dive (Spoilers)

🌪 Clashing Crises and the Meeting of Delayed Selves

In 《What a Feeling》, the relationship between Marie and Fa goes beyond a simple romance between middle-aged women—it is a healing and liberating connection through which they discover their true selves amid unexpected life crises. Though they appear to live opposite lives, they share a common sense of emptiness and suppressed desire, becoming mirrors and catalysts for each other’s growth.

🚨 Crisis, Chance, and the Pull of Liberation

Marie and Fa meet by chance at a time when both women are at their most vulnerable.

• Marie's Collapse and Fa's Salvation:
  • Marie’s life spirals out of control after her husband demands a divorce, she faces professional turmoil, and her relationship with her daughter deteriorates. Her spontaneous visit to a lesbian bar, where she meets Fa, symbolizes an "off-track detour" from her prescribed life. Fa becomes a liberating force who opens Marie to long-suppressed joy, freedom, and sexual awakening.
  • To Marie, Fa represents the tempting danger of living by emotion rather than expectation.
• Fa’s Escape and Marie’s Stability:
  • Fa appears carefree but has long avoided emotional intimacy by maintaining casual relationships with married women. Marie offers her the possibility of a stable, honest, and emotionally genuine connection.
  • Through Marie, Fa experiences a sense of domestic warmth and security rooted in Austrian–German culture, something she has longed for amid the identity conflicts of being an Iranian immigrant.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Discovering the “Delayed Self” Through Each Other

As their relationship deepens, each woman helps the other bring her suppressed or delayed self to the surface.

• Marie’s “Late Blooming” Coming Out:
  • Through her connection with Fa, Marie becomes aware of her lesbian identity. Having long lived by society’s definitions of a “good wife, good mother, and competent doctor,” she has ignored her own sexual desires. Fa helps her recognize what she truly wants and guides her toward authentic self-acceptance—even in her fifties.
• Fa’s Confrontation with True Intimacy:
  • As Fa’s relationship with Marie grows deeper, she faces the need for emotional depth that casual affairs cannot provide. This forces her to confront her cultural anxieties and personal fears—especially her long habit of concealing her sexuality from her family—and to find the courage for a genuine relationship.

🌞 Dilemmas and Mature Resolution

Their romance faces obstacles rooted in cultural background, differing paces of self-realization, and old behavioral patterns.

• Cultural and Class Contrasts: Marie belongs to Austria’s middle-class mainstream, while Fa is an Iranian immigrant and blue-collar entrepreneur. These cultural and social contrasts add tension to their relationship, subtly highlighting issues of immigration and class within Austrian society.
• Marie’s Hesitation and Fa’s Escapism:
  • Marie hesitates to come out or fully embrace her relationship with Fa due to societal judgment and her daughter’s rebellion. Meanwhile, Fa’s instinct to flee re-emerges as she tries to return to her old pattern of casual affairs once the relationship deepens. This dilemma forces both women to take time apart and focus on their individual growth.
• Mature Reconnection: The film portrays their reconciliation with maturity rather than melodrama. After confronting their individual issues—Marie’s coming out and Fa’s reconciliation with her family—they reunite as whole, self-aware individuals ready to begin a deeper, more authentic relationship.

Their connection shows that a life crisis can become the greatest opportunity. Fa opens Marie to new possibilities of life and love, while Marie helps Fa find the courage for genuine intimacy and self-love. Their romance is a joyful and heartfelt chronicle of midlife self-discovery and liberation.

🌹 Sincerity Beneath the Humor

Director Kat Rohrer skillfully handles complex themes within the tone of a lighthearted and witty romantic comedy.

• Natural Comedy and On-Screen Chemistry: The film balances situational irony with sharp dialogue, and the sparkling chemistry and comedic timing between Caroline Peters and Proschat Madani make the couple irresistibly charming.
• Positive Depiction of Lesbian Spaces: The lesbian bar that Fa frequents—and Marie’s experiences there—depicts queer community spaces as liberating and affirming. These scenes emphasize the importance of emotional safe havens for those coming out later in life.

《What a Feeling》 combines the familiar warmth of a classic romantic comedy with modern themes of middle-aged womanhood, queer identity, and multiculturalism. It is a refreshing, uplifting film that encourages viewers to discover themselves, embrace love, and pursue authentic freedom—a joyful ode to liberation.

🎯 Personal Rating

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★★★