Club Zero

Mia Wasikowska stars in this Cannes selection from Jessica Hausner, as a conscious eating teacher who wants to introduce her students to the mysterious Club Zero.

The Australian actress, who broke through internationally with the titular role in Alice in Wonderland (2010), plays Ms. Novak, who comes to work at an elite boarding school, led by Ms. Dorset (Sidse Babett Knudsen, Borgen). 

Having a conscious eating teacher on board, is seen as an added value element to the curriculum. The children can only benefit, as individuals, but also as members of a rapidly changing world, heading into a future in which sustainability is key.

Little do the parents know, however, that Ms. Novak, who has no children of her own, brings her own highly peculiar agenda to the (dinner) table. She seems to form a special relationship with her pupils, including Ragna (Florence Baker), Elsa (Ksenia Devriendt), Fred (Luke Barker), Ben (Samuel D. Anderson) and Helen (Gwen Currant), whose individual personality traits are cleverly linked into the plot.

Club Zero (which Hausner co-wrote with 

Géraldine Bajard) is a dark drama, with some light thriller elements, and some black humor too. Visually it is dominated by the yellow (I think it’s key lime but you may call it light yellow-green or even acid) of the students’ unisex school uniforms, and some other striking color schemes that clash handsomely with the serious subject matter at hand.

The camera slowly but surely insinuates its way into the children’s lives, much in the way that Ms. Novak does, even after she is fired from her job.

Mia Wasikowska is, as always, eminently watchable, while Knudsen and the supporting cast are equally fine. A special mention must go to the score by Markus Binder, who picked up a European Film Award for his troubles. Influenced by the music of African and Asian cults, the ritualistic sounds add to the heightened reality of a movie, that seems to take place in England (if only because certain scenes were filmed at St. Catherine’s college in Oxford).

Hausner’s detached style of filmmaking places Club Zero, like her previous movies squarely in the arthouse circuit, but there is an Hitchcockian element to the way she gradually builds suspense, not unlike her compatriot Michael Haneke used to do, which makes the (relatively slow moving) movie more accessible than you’d think.

Having said all that, Club Zero is not for the faint of heart. If you are sensitive to scenes depicting eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, well, the trigger warning at the beginning of the movie is not meant to be ironic, it’s absolutely there for a reason.

Hausner rose to prominence in the previous decades with movies like Lovely Rita (2001) and Lourdes (2009), while Little Joe (2019) won Emily Beecham the best actress prize at Cannes. With Club Zero she adds another valuable jewel to her crown.

Note: Club Zero is out now in the United States, Spain, Germany and Canada. It opens in Brazil on April 18, in The Netherlands on May 2 and Belgium on May 29. It becomes available online in the US on May 21.