My Wonderful Wanda (2020): Swiss Family Dramedy

My Wonderful Wanda is an interesting, darkly funny and often surprising Swiss movie about a family, a caregiver, and an upstairs-downstairs situation that starts out looking like a black comedy à la Parasite (2019) but has other things on its mind. Which is not to say that it lacks for disquieting or scandalous moments of its own; but this picture goes about its business in a very different way. For one thing, it’s not trying to be a thriller or shockingly audacious, unlike that Oscar-winning thriller. What we have instead in My Wonderful Wanda is a kind of dramedy, or more aptly: a melodramedy, that uses a subtler, and one might say meatier, style of satire. It is ultimately a quieter, more heartening film. 

Set in a lovely villa on the shore of beautiful Zurichsee, the movie opens as Wanda, a home health worker or “carer” is returning from a brief sabbatical with her own family in Poland – two kids and her father and mother – to resume her role as caretaker for seventy-year-old Josef, the patriarch of the super wealthy Wegmeister-Gloor family. Josef [André Jung] has suffered a stroke and is significantly impaired, needing help in and out of bed, bathing, dressing and such-like, although his mental faculties and imperious personality are intact. Other family members are around, including his rather majestic wife, Elsa [a terrific Marthe Keller (Marathon Man, Bobby Deerfield)], his dreamy adult son Gregi [David Matschenz (Babylon Berlin, Charité)] and, at times, his ill-natured lawyer daughter Sophie [a convincing Birgit Minichmayr], but in their rarified world this kind of work is for servants.  

Wanda, award-winning Polish stage and screen star Agnieszka Growchowska,  leaves her family behind because the money she will be paid in Switzerland, while a bargain for her employers, is far more than she could earn back home, if she could find work there at all.  She will work for three months, then return home to her kids and family. This phenomenon is so widespread in Switzerland (and elsewhere in Europe, no doubt) that it even has a name: “care migration”. The system is rationalized as creating a win-win situation; but as we see in the film, it remains lopsided and exploitive.  Although Elsa assures her that she’ll be treated as one of the family, pretty soon she is negotiating with Wanda to also do housework during her “free” time. Sophie refers to her distastefully as “that Polish woman” and worse. But Josef loves her. And Gregi would like to.

Josef’s feelings for Wanda are the basis for the movie’s title [and the much better German title which translates to Wanda, My Miracle]. They are also a prime source for the familial complications which soon ensue for the Wegmeister-Gloor clan – and for Wanda’s family as well; complications which are both quite funny and wildly dramatic, threatening to bust the already fragile ecosystem of their families.  Cracks appear, dirty little secrets are revealed.  There’s a lot of rankling.

Everyone, rich and poor, feels underappreciated.  Between some of the characters, the disrespect has been earned; between others it is an outgrowth of class attitudes.  Regardless, everyone yearns to be respected or at least appreciated. And one of the more admirable and hopeful elements of  My Wonderful Wanda is the degree to which many of the characters do face up to their shortcomings  and their unwarranted attitudes and do change. As the director has put it, these changes are liberating.

Throughout, despite some questionable behavior, Wanda proves to be the most levelheaded member of either clan. She is as much manipulator as victim, perhaps more so – that’s for us to decide. The entire ensemble is quite good, but it is the two key women Growchowska [Wanda] and Keller [Elsa] who are especially wonderful to watch. 

Writer-director Bettina Oberli keeps things moving along nicely, layering on numerous clever and surprising plot twists along the way, revealing more about each character as she goes. The ending may feel a little fairy-tale-like; but the overall effect is charming and entertaining. I saw  My Wonderful Wanda with several other people, and we all liked it. I suspect you will, too.

1 hour 51 minutes

Grade: B+

Currently showing in select arthouse/international theaters and streaming via virtual cinemas [CLICK-HERE for streaming and theater information]

In German, Subtitled