Mr. Wilder and Me

“Mr. Wilder and Me” is a tender coming-of-age story and an intimate portrait of one of cinema’s most intriguing figures—director of films such as “Some Like It Hot,” “The Apartment,” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Jonathan Coe examines the nature of fame and time, family and seductive but dangerous nostalgia. In the heady summer of 1977, an innocent girl named Calista travels from Athens into the big world. On a Greek island transformed into a film set, Calista begins working for the famous Hollywood director Billy Wilder—whom she knows almost nothing about. However, the time she will spend in this new life, unfamiliar to her, full of glamour and the glow of spotlight beams, will change her forever. While Calista is swept up by delight at her new adventures, Wilder himself is depressed: he can’t shake the feeling that the peak of his directorial glory is long behind him. Rejected by Hollywood, Wilder shoots his new film with German money—and when Calista goes after him to Munich, she ends up right at the heart of his dark family history, rooted in Germany.