Happy As One

Happily united or lonely together? Vanessa Jopp takes a wry yet serious look at a group of very different people all looking for a way out of their lonely existence. Whether they are searching for the next romantic attachment, the love of their lives or long-lost love, they wander about Berlin and falteringly find their way towards each other.

Head of the ensemble is Mathilda, an uncompromising and provocative urban warrior. It will take some honest-to-goodness tender loving care to peel off her hard shell – of the kind that, of all people, a cop in uniform named Bronski, can supply. His falling unconscious on Mathilda’s doorstep while on duty marks the delicate beginning of their fragile relationship.

Mathilda’s sister Ali is having an increasingly difficult time trying to juggle her family and her career. Her husband David finds her tendency to be a control freak insufferable. He is struggling desperately to create his own space in a relationship that, apparently, is only held together by their son. He suddenly finds himself faced with the question of whether he might not have a better chance of fulfilling his hopes with his girlfriend, Hanna.

Andi, aged 50, can only dream of having such problems. He is convinced that bad things are always happening to him for which he is never to blame. The more Andi yearns for someone to talk to the more difficult he finds it to approach women. He needs the safe distance of an ad in the personals to meet Johanna.

Johanna lives quietly with her daughter, Mandy. Johanna is an extremely helpful person who has a tendency to foist herself onto the people around her – Mandy in particular. This 16-year-old girl seems to rebel against her mother a little more every day. By chance, Mandy comes across Andi’s telephone number and they begin having anonymous conversations. Before long, Mandy has cast her spell over him. She becomes an unwitting rival to her mother, with whom Andi has not yet really been able to open up at all.

Source: 56. Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin (catalogue)