BERLIN, Germany – Director Koxi has delivered a searingly contemporary adaptation of Elfriede Jelinek’s seminal 1975 novel, “Liebhaberinnen” (Women as Lovers), translating its trenchant critique of patriarchal structures into a modern cinematic language. Set for a 2026 release, the film, titled simply "Liebhaberinnen," arrives with a profound sense of urgency, marking not only Koxi’s directorial debut but also coinciding with the 80th birthday of the Nobel laureate whose work continues to resonate with unsettling precision. This new interpretation scrutinizes how the commodification of women’s bodies and aspirations, once confined to factory floors and domestic spheres, has morphed into the insidious algorithms of influencer culture and the performative demands of the modern service economy.
The film meticulously dissects the lives of two women, Brigitte and Paula, whose narratives, separated by generations but united by systemic pressures, expose the enduring "mess" of gender, capitalism, and sexual economics. Through Koxi’s sharp lens, Jelinek’s original, often brutal, observations on female subjugation and the relentless pursuit of social advancement through men are brought into stark relief against the backdrop of an ostensibly liberated yet equally exploitative contemporary world. Johanna Wokalek delivers a compelling performance as Brigitte, embodying the exhaustion of a woman navigating late-stage capitalism, while Hannah Schiller captivates as Paula, a young woman ensnared by the promises and perils of the digital age.
The Progenitor: Jelinek’s "Liebhaberinnen" and Its Historical Echoes
Elfriede Jelinek, Austria’s provocative and often controversial Nobel Prize laureate in Literature (2004), has consistently challenged societal norms, particularly those pertaining to gender, power, and sexuality. Her work, characterized by its scathing social commentary, experimental prose, and unwavering feminist perspective, delves into the mechanisms of oppression with an almost surgical precision. "Liebhaberinnen," published in 1975, stands as an early, yet profoundly influential, example of her critique, articulating the constricted lives and often desperate strategies of women within a rigid patriarchal society.
The novel opens with the now-iconic, deliberately uncapitalized line: "eines tages beschloss brigitte, dass sie nur mehr frau sein wollte, ganz frau für einen typ, der heinz heisst." This declaration immediately establishes the central dilemma: for Brigitte, a woman over 40 working in a bra factory, her aspirations for upward mobility are inextricably linked to her ability to secure a man. In the post-war economic boom of the 1970s, particularly in regions like Austria, traditional gender roles remained deeply entrenched. Opportunities for women, especially working-class women, were often limited to domesticity, low-wage industrial labor, or service professions. For many, marriage to a man with social standing or economic prospects was seen as the most viable, if not the only, path to a better life. Jelinek’s prose, however, strips away any romantic illusion from this pursuit, describing Brigitte’s efforts to ingratiate herself with Heinz’s mother with biting cynicism: "brigitte kriecht der mutti von heinz in den arsch," Jelinek writes, "dort findet sie auch nichts andres als die gleiche scheisse wie in der muschel, die sie gerade schrubbt." This visceral language underscores the degradation inherent in such a quest for security, equating social climbing with literal abjection and revealing the hollowness of the promise of domestic bliss.
Alongside Brigitte, the novel introduces Paula, a younger woman whose future, while seemingly open, is similarly circumscribed by societal expectations. Jelinek’s acerbic commentary on Paula’s choices highlights the limited horizons for women: "sie ist jetzt alt genug," Jelinek remarks, "um sich überlegen zu dürfen, was sie einmal werden möchte: hausfrau oder verkäuferin." This stark binary illustrates how, even for a younger generation, the options presented within the patriarchal framework remained fundamentally restrictive, forcing women to choose between roles that, in Jelinek’s view, ultimately served to maintain their subservience. The novel’s enduring power lies in its unflinching portrayal of how women internalize and perpetuate these systems, often at great personal cost, in their desperate pursuit of recognition, security, or a semblance of agency. Jelinek’s work is not merely a lament but a fierce indictment, written in a style that deliberately eschews sentimentality to expose the raw, often grotesque, realities of female existence under patriarchy.
A Modern Mirror: Koxi’s Contemporary Adaptation
Koxi’s debut film undertakes the ambitious task of transporting Jelinek’s potent critique into the contemporary landscape, revealing how the fundamental mechanisms of exploitation have persisted, albeit in new guises. The film, with its 2026 release date, serves as a timely reflection on the continuities between past and present forms of female commodification.
Brigitte’s Transformation: From Factory Floor to Exhibition Hall
In Koxi’s adaptation, Brigitte (played with a remarkable blend of resignation and simmering defiance by Johanna Wokalek) is no longer confined to the monotonous labor of a bra factory. Instead, she epitomizes the modern service worker, a trade fair hostess whose job demands a constant performance of allure and approachability. Dressed in a mini-dress and balancing on "at least 7-centimeter heels," Brigitte’s primary function is to "lure customers with a smile." This image, sharply contrasting with the industrial setting of the novel, nevertheless carries the same weight of physical and emotional exploitation. Her boss’s cynical dictum – "smiling is a home" – encapsulates the forced cheerfulness and emotional labor expected of women in customer-facing roles, where their appearance and demeanor are as much a part of the product as the goods they represent.
Koxi vividly portrays the physical toll of this performance. A scene where Brigitte loses a tooth biting into an old piece of pizza, though not explicitly shown, underscores the precariousness of her existence and the constant pressure to maintain a flawless facade. More tellingly, the audience witnesses the pain etched on her face at the end of the day, a visible manifestation of the "enduring grin" that has become a necessary, yet draining, professional mask. This contemporary Brigitte is a poignant symbol of how the commodification of the female body has evolved from brute industrial labor to the equally demanding, if more subtly insidious, performance of desirability and agreeableness in the service economy. Her struggles highlight the economic precarity that still forces women into roles where their bodies and emotional labor are their primary assets.
Paula’s Digital Odyssey: Influencer Culture as Commodification
The younger generation’s experience is channeled through Paula (Hannah Schiller), whose aspirations are entirely shaped by the digital age. Instead of choosing between "housewife or saleswoman," Paula seeks to "influence" and constantly streams her life from a "desolate village" into the global ether. Her online persona is a carefully curated, often bizarre, spectacle designed to attract attention and monetize her existence. She films her mother’s (Susanne Bredehöft) "Bill Gates picture collection," describing her as "obsessed with Bill," hinting at a deeper societal fascination with wealth and power. More disturbingly, Paula films herself wearing a cat mask on a sex platform, where she sells not only her used bathwater but also her "cut-off toenails" and "worn socks."
This portrayal of Paula is a chillingly accurate reflection of contemporary influencer culture and the gig economy, where personal authenticity is a commodity, and privacy is sacrificed for potential profit. The film starkly contrasts Paula’s "ease" in monetizing her youth and body with Brigitte’s increasing struggles as she ages out of the "hostess age." Both narratives, however, converge on a central truth: "Both market their bodies because both live in a system where female bodies, their possessions, or their views can be monetized." Koxi masterfully uses Paula’s digital life to illustrate how the patriarchal-capitalist system has adapted, finding new avenues for exploitation in the virtual realm, turning even the most intimate aspects of a woman’s existence into marketable goods. This digital commodification, while offering an illusion of agency and freedom, ultimately reinforces the same underlying power dynamics that Jelinek criticized decades ago.
The Enduring Web of Patriarchy and Capitalism
Koxi’s "Liebhaberinnen" effectively demonstrates that despite decades of feminist advancements, the core issues raised by Jelinek remain grotesquely relevant. The film’s structure itself underscores this continuity, using Paula’s ubiquitous streams as a narrative device that connects the two protagonists. Brigitte, watching Paula’s digital broadcasts, consumes the very image of youth and commodification that she herself is slowly losing. This visual and narrative interplay, with its distinct "cinematographic display format" for Paula’s online world versus the traditional "cinema format" for Brigitte’s reality, subtly yet powerfully segregates and describes their experiences while simultaneously linking them within the same systemic framework.
The System’s Universal Grip: Beyond Gender
Crucially, Koxi’s film echoes Jelinek’s broader critique, asserting that the system "screws" not only women but also men. Heinz (Ben Münchow), Brigitte’s intended husband, is not depicted as a powerful oppressor but as another victim of societal expectations. His struggles with "not enough testosterone" reflect the pressures men face to conform to traditional masculine ideals, exposing the vulnerabilities that exist even within the dominant gender. Jelinek’s original description of Heinz’s "fat white electrician’s body" hinted at a working-class male figure who, while benefiting from patriarchal norms, was himself constrained by them. Koxi expands on this, portraying Heinz as a figure grappling with his own inadequacies, highlighting how rigid gender roles diminish everyone.
The film also introduces characters like Brigitte’s colleague, who cynically raps, "Use the patriarchy. Why do you have breasts, thighs, legs and a pussy?" This line, jarring in its directness, reflects a dark pragmatism born of systemic oppression – a survival strategy that advocates for turning the tools of objectification against the system itself, even if it means self-exploitation. Furthermore, the presence of coaches like Susi (Stephanie Stremler), who peddle "self-confidence" through "the most clichéd of all slogans," speaks volumes about the pervasive self-optimization culture. These figures profit from the insecurities fostered by a capitalist-patriarchal system, offering superficial solutions that ultimately reinforce the very pressures they claim to alleviate. As the film starkly concludes, the "mess with women and men, capitalism and the sexual economy is the same as before."
Artistic Vision and Performance
Koxi’s directorial style for "Liebhaberinnen" is as associative and dissociative as Jelinek’s novel, skillfully weaving together disparate narratives and visual motifs to create a cohesive yet fragmented portrayal of modern life. While the film may, at times, lack the raw, throat-scratching power of Jelinek’s original language, which made "laughter get stuck in one’s throat until it bled," it compensates with a distinct visual language and exceptional performances.
Johanna Wokalek’s portrayal of Brigitte is particularly noteworthy. She imbues the character with a "deadpan humor" that underscores the absurdity of her situation, yet also with "sufficient pathos" to reveal the underlying tragedy. Wokalek’s performance makes the "artificiality visible," allowing the grotesque realities of Brigitte’s life to fully occupy the screen. Her nuanced acting ensures that Brigitte is not merely a caricature but a deeply empathetic figure caught in an inescapable trap. Hannah Schiller, as Paula, brings a raw, almost unsettling authenticity to her role, perfectly capturing the performative nature of influencer culture and the vulnerability beneath the digital facade. The dynamic between these two performances, often mediated through Paula’s streams, creates a compelling dialogue across generations and social strata.
Implications and Conclusion
Towards the film’s conclusion, Koxi offers a "passable development" for her anti-heroines, a bittersweet resolution that is far from triumphant. Brigitte, having successfully "arranged" herself with Heinz, finds residency in his villa. Her tour for her "gold-digging mother" (Victoria Trauttmansdorff) serves as a stark inventory of her hard-won material gains: "The wardrobe is new, the sofa is new, the TV is new, and my new tooth." This list, culminating in the replacement of the tooth lost during her hostess duties, is a chilling testament to the sacrifices made and the prices paid for a semblance of security and comfort. It underscores that her "success" is defined by acquisition, a direct outcome of commodifying her body and suppressing her self.
Paula’s early stream, a sardonic observation that "Men can be very helpful when it comes to dying in war or when you can’t open a jar," encapsulates the film’s bleak, resigned humor. This closing sentiment reiterates that while men might serve specific, often rudimentary, functions, their role in alleviating the systemic pressures on women remains negligible. The film’s ultimate message is profoundly unsettling: despite the veneer of progress and the evolution of social roles, the fundamental power dynamics and exploitative undercurrents of patriarchy and capitalism persist.
"Liebhaberinnen" serves as a powerful reminder that Elfriede Jelinek’s incisive critique of female subjugation and societal hypocrisy is as pertinent today as it was half a century ago. Koxi’s adaptation, with its shrewd modernization and compelling performances, forces contemporary audiences to confront the uncomfortable truth that the "mess" of gender, power, and economics remains stubbornly the same. It challenges viewers to look beyond superficial changes and recognize the enduring mechanisms through which women’s bodies, desires, and aspirations continue to be shaped, exploited, and ultimately, monetized within an unyielding system. The film is not just an homage to a literary masterpiece but a vital, unsettling commentary on the ongoing battle for true liberation in the digital age.
