The latest drama from German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Afire, Phoenix), Miroirs No. 3 injects his frequent muse Paula Beer into an economical, Misery-like situation of cozy recovery haunted by eeriness—with much less leg-breaking and all unspooling in just 86 breezy minutes. After a shocking car crash leaves pianist Laura (Beer) stranded, injured, and grieving on vacation, she’s nursed back to health by the local, Betty (Barbara Auer), who found her after the accident. Eventually expanding its story to encompass Betty’s husband and grown son, Miroirs No. 3 coats its small-scale tragedy in the realistic emotional debris of avoidance, obsession, and transference.
Of course there’s something off about this good Samaritan who was so eager to be in the right place at the wrong time, and Laura sinks into the unspoken, lived-in loss emanating from Betty’s family like a slow-moving mammoth succumbing to a tar pit. It’s this engulfing atmosphere that dominates Petzold’s film rather than the mystery lurking in its familial plot, and that atmosphere gathers all the easier because the film’s heavy ideas sit gently atop its bright and quiet countryside. Miroirs No. 3 boasts an aesthetic that reflects the title, which takes its name from Maurice Ravel’s drifting, lilting piece of melancholy piano music, “A Boat On The Ocean,” which Laura performs late in the film in its most staggering scene.
The uneasy, liquid flow of the piece calls to mind both Petzold’s aquatic myth Undine and the identity-shifting psychothrillers that inspired David Lynch (a filmmaker who loved a mirror image, and who’s got his own relationship with Lauras and Bettys). But despite its own doubles, Miroirs No. 3 isn’t quite that deep or surreal, though it aspires to be more moving than complex; in keeping with its condensed runtime, the film is efficient, rushing through its premise as quickly as the totaled convertible that ruins Laura’s getaway in order to get to the meaty domestic pain at its core.
This storytelling approach—a stagey, just-go-with-it lightness that’s more about themes and mood than details or logic—defines the understated film as deeply as its sunny days, empty homes, and subtle humor. Beer’s willfully ignorant, wide-eyed performance meshes well with the suspicious turns by the sad-eyed men in Betty’s life (Matthias Brandt and Enno Trebs) and slots in neatly next to Auer’s desperate maternalism. The numbness and depression catalyzed by Laura’s recent trauma soften her up for Betty’s well-meaning designs, and the two performers convey all they need to in their quiet scenes together. It’s easier for the young woman to simply dissociate and accept her new position among these strangers than to truly reckon with the disaster that’s rocked her life.
It’s this refusal to look hardship in the eye that binds the characters of Miroirs No. 3 together, stuck in an invisible Chinese finger trap that confines them all the tighter the more they try to escape their pain. Despite a plot with plenty of reveals, there are few explicit revelations to be found in this contained and sophisticated drama—just a glimpse at the fragile feelings that can unknowingly unite strangers.
Director: Christian Petzold
Writer: Christian Petzold
Starring: Paula Beer, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Enno Trebs
Release Date: March 20, 2026
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