Luna Wedler

Wedler's young women often have to insist on being heard. In Silent Friend (2026), her Grete has a quiet persistence that suits Ildikó Enyedi's patient storytelling. We find her persuasive in that company, and would be wary of treating intensity as her chief qualification. That quieter work gives us a good reason to follow her, even when the surrounding film asks rather too much patience.

Her first lead was Mia in Blue My Mind (2017), a coming-of-age story that makes bodily change frighteningly literal. The performance established the physically and emotionally fearless side of her acting. Roxy in the modern Cyrano adaptation The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (2018) brought wider notice in German commercial cinema; the lead in Biohackers (2020–2021) gave her a television series to carry. Those are different jobs, though the recurring interest is easy to recognise: young women trying to establish who they are. We would resist making that a permanent job description.

Enyedi is the collaborator we would keep following. Wedler had a supporting part in The Story of My Wife (2021) before Silent Friend, giving this stretch of her work some continuity beyond the changes of genre. Her stated emphasis on listening and being present makes sense alongside her quiet ensemble performance in the latter. We would welcome another film together, preferably one with a firmer sense of how long its individual stories need to be.

Silent Friend earns our recommendation, with a caveat that matters: at 147 minutes, its uneven interwoven stories leave the weaker passages too much room. We were absorbed by the attention it gives Tony Leung and a ginkgo tree; its willingness to spend time with both makes the unlikely pairing work. Wedler need not dominate that company for us to notice her. Start with Silent Friend, but make sure a patient, uneven ensemble film is what the evening calls for.