22 Lengths

Mia Maariel Meyer's 2025 German film adapts Caroline Wahl's first novel. Tilda's days never vary: she writes her thesis in mathematics, works a supermarket till, looks after her ten-year-old sister Ida, and on some days has to gather up her alcoholic mother as well. Swimming exactly twenty-two lengths at the pool each time is the one part of that order that belongs to her. That summer two things arrive at once: an offer of doctoral work in Berlin, and Viktor, who swims the same count. The film frames the choice between leaving and staying not as a story about freedom but as an account of responsibility, with the question of whether Ida can be left behind sitting under every scene. Luna Wedler gives a measured, exhausted performance. Who it's for: viewers who want contemporary European drama about addiction in a family and the duty of an older sibling. Who it's not for: anyone who does not want to watch what alcoholism does to a household.