Alles Isy (2018)

At a wild party, 16-year-old Jonas learns that his best friend Isy, whom he is in love with, has been flirting with an older boy for the past few days. Deeply hurt, Jonas gets drunk with his friends, the boastful Lenny and the shy Martin. But Isy also suffers a painful humiliation that evening when she sees the boy she has a crush on kissing someone else. Her friend Nora comforts the tearful Isy and offers her drugs. Later, the two girls come across Lenny, Jonas, and Martin in a bedroom; they have also taken drugs. After the girls get into an argument, Nora leaves the room. Soon afterward, Isy loses consciousness while high. Lenny starts undressing her, at first pretending that he wants to help. But then he takes advantage of her helplessness and sexually assaults her. When Jonas, himself heavily under the influence of drugs and alcohol, tries to stop Lenny, Martin holds him back. Lenny and Martin then rape the unconscious girl one after the other, and afterward pressure Jonas to do the same. Nora watches this part of what happens through a crack in the door but does not intervene. Since Isy has no memory of the rape, the assault initially appears to have no consequences. Isy suspects that something terrible happened at the party, but her friend Nora does not tell her what she knows either. Isy’s relationship with her mother, Bea, is strained because Isy lied to her in order to go to the party, leaving no opening for Isy to confide her worries to her mother. Isy experiences unexplained emotional outbursts and feels ill, but returns to school after missing a day. Jonas is increasingly plagued by guilt, but does not know whom to turn to. His friend Martin distances himself from what happened by coming out to Jonas as gay. He says he only took part because he was afraid of being outed against his will. Jonas is also put under intense pressure by Lenny to forget about it quickly. If Isy cannot remember, then nothing happened; and even if she does remember, no one will believe her anyway. After collapsing in gym class, Isy visits her gynecologist at her mother’s insistence because of acute lower abdominal pain. She is shocked to learn that she has clearly had vigorous sexual intercourse in the past few days. She confides in her mother that something must have happened at the party, but because of her memory gap she cannot identify anyone as responsible. Isy absolutely does not want the police involved. She fears that she may have consented to sex while under the influence of drugs and is afraid of being branded a “slut” at school. She and her mother go to a counseling center for victims of sexual violence, where they learn that a forensic medical examination can be carried out without filing a police report. Isy and her mother then go to the clinic for victims of violence. Whether the examination yields usable evidence is left unresolved. Unaware that Jonas is one of the perpetrators, Isy’s mother asks his father, Richard, who is a prosecutor, for advice. He urges Bea to file a police report so that the rapist will not get away with it. Meanwhile, Jonas, who deeply regrets what he did, confides in his mother, Carola—but does not tell her that Isy was the victim. Only when Richard and Carola meet at home that evening do they realize the full extent of what has happened. Knowing that his own son is one of the rapists, Richard radically changes his position. Worried about the family’s reputation, his career prospects, and his son’s future, he makes Jonas and his friends agree on a consistent false story. He also advises Bea, “as a friend,” not to file a report, saying that the chances of success are extremely poor and that the proceedings would be lengthy and humiliating. Carola, who is close friends with Bea and plans to start a business with her, is disgusted by her husband’s behavior, but cannot bring herself to act or speak to Bea. Jonas had hoped his mother would help him do the right thing, and feels betrayed by her. Shortly afterward, Nora, who is in love with Jonas, tells him that she witnessed the rape. She promises not to tell anyone. Jonas, however, accuses Nora of failing to prevent it, which she takes as him blaming her. At a parents’ meeting called to discuss the property damage at the party, Bea publicly reveals that her daughter was raped that night. Richard skillfully manipulates the parents’ mood by portraying Bea’s statement as speculation. Jonas can no longer bear to stay silent and lie to Isy, so he decides to turn himself in to the police, but his mother stops him. She is afraid of the consequences and fears that the others involved will shift the blame onto Jonas. She has seen for herself what his classmate Lenny is capable of: a few days earlier, Lenny had also behaved inappropriately toward her and later tried to use it to pressure Richard. Finally, Jonas goes to see Isy, who is packing her things because she wants to move in with her father after the constant conflict with her mother. Isy, who does not know that Jonas was involved in the rape, feels understood by him, but knows that he will soon be going to the United States for a year. When she asks him if he wants to sleep with her, he can no longer bear the situation and tells her what happened on the night of the party. Isy is devastated. The film does not resolve the many conflicts, and no police report is filed. However, the relationships between the characters break down under the weight of what happened. Jonas flies to America for his year abroad; his mother hints to Richard that she does not expect him to come back. Isy moves in with her father. Jonas’s mother also leaves the house with her suitcases packed. Richard is left alone.