Beste Bescherung (2013)

For Christmas, the four Maillinger siblings want to spend the festive season together in peace and quiet. So Miriam, who is now heavily pregnant, has invited Anna, Vince, and Tom, along with their respective partners, to the farm belonging to her boyfriend. Their plan is in danger of falling apart when their unpredictable father, Karl, turns up uninvited at the idyllic, remote farm, on the run from tax investigators. Reluctantly, the children give the family patriarch shelter, and he has to make do with rather primitive accommodations, contrary to his usual habits. The familiar friction and arguments with him are not long in coming. Throughout it all, Miriam’s future mother-in-law, Rosalie, is a peacemaker. She accepts Karl’s quirks without prejudice, but expects the extended family to put on this year’s nativity play. Tradition in the small community dictates that the family expecting a child must take on the task. At first, the siblings are not at all enthusiastic. But out of consideration for the pregnant Miriam, they eventually agree. Tom, who had actually hoped to get some peace from his work in Africa, takes charge of directing and thus inevitably gives the “play” a political slant. He casts his father as the hard-hearted innkeeper, so Karl repeatedly has to put up with pointed references to himself. Tom wants Anna and her boyfriend Ben to play Mary and Joseph as a happy couple, which they find difficult because their relationship is currently in crisis. Karl is desperate to keep his tax troubles secret from his children. Since he has arrived with a suitcase full of undeclared cash, he gives some of it to his children, who are astonished to see their usually stingy father suddenly being so generous. But Karl is in for a surprise, too: his second wife, Dina, whom he had just separated from, has followed him and has now arrived at the farm as well. In the middle of rehearsals for the nativity play, Miriam goes into labor. Ben, a practicing gynecologist, helps her, and the baby is born right on December 24. Everything seems perfect, but Karl’s children discover his undeclared cash and fear they could also be held liable if he is reported. They press their father to turn himself in, but he secretly has the letter retrieved from the mailbox. Thanks to their nativity play, the family has unexpectedly grown closer again. Their performance is a great success, and they are glad to have spent the Christmas season together. Only Karl is left somewhat troubled, because Dina has run off with his tax money, which he had embezzled, hoping in this way to lure him to Moldova.