Alles auf Zucker! (2005)

The unemployed former East German sports reporter Jakob Zuckermann, alias Jaeckie Zucker, has long since stopped thinking of himself as Jewish. The Berliner is deep in financial trouble when he learns of his mother’s death—and with it comes the hope of an inheritance that could get him out of a tight spot. But his mother’s will deals Zucker a double blow: she has stipulated that, after her burial at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee, a seven-day period of mourning in accordance with Jewish tradition (shiva) must be observed, and that Zucker must do so alongside his strictly observant brother Samuel, who lives in the West. The brothers, estranged for decades, will receive their inheritance only if they reconcile during the mourning period. They can either inherit it together or lose it altogether. Samuel arrives from Frankfurt am Main with his wife Golda, their deeply religious son Joshua, and their daughter Lilly. Jaeckie’s wife Marlene makes an earnest effort to provide the guests with a ‘Jewish’ place to stay and kosher food, and to present their children, Thomas and Jana, as sufficiently ‘Jewish,’ but the façade is quickly seen through. Meanwhile, Jaeckie is mainly worrying about an upcoming billiards tournament, which has a €100,000 prize and which the confident player desperately needs to win to pay off his debts. To take part, he sneaks away from his mother’s funeral with a trick: he pretends to have a heart attack. Marlene soon can’t take the lying any longer and confesses Jaeckie’s deceptions to the guests, along with the fact that their marriage is in trouble and they are facing financial difficulties. Contrary to expectations, this confession is met neither with outrage nor condemnation, since the Zuckermanns also depend on their mother’s inheritance financially. Meanwhile, Jaeckie is disqualified from the tournament in question because he arrives late for a game, and eventually the enormous stress really does cause him to have a heart attack, putting him briefly into a coma. In the end, the two very different families do stick together after all, because they must prevent the inheritance from going to the Jewish community if they cannot reach an agreement. Reconciliation is therefore achieved. The rabbi and his observers are ultimately willing to accept a conciliatory, pragmatic solution as well. The mother’s much-coveted inheritance turns out to be a ‘worthless portfolio of securities.’