Das Glück ist eine Insel (2001)

Environmental activist Jens Groote runs a rehabilitation station for orphaned young seals on an island in the North Sea. The young Saskia Janssen assists him, as does his son Patrick, who has reached his teens. Patrick’s mother died in a car accident, so he sends a message in a bottle in search of a replacement. The bottle is found on the banks of the Elbe in Hamburg by ten-year-old Melanie, whose father has left her mother, Corinna Jakobs, a lawyer. Corinna represents fish processor and fishing fleet owner Petersen on behalf of her law firm. Petersen is attacked by Groote at sea and in the newspapers, and has him sued for an injunction against defamation and 50,000 marks in damages. A holiday on a tidal island is just what Melanie needs for her chronic cough, so she goes there with her mother, where her pen pal and his father live. The lawyer hopes to use the opportunity to reach an out-of-court settlement with Groote, but he is reluctant to compromise. The children create opportunities for their parents to get to know each other privately, but Groote’s assistant seems to have her eye on him, and Bruno Höhler, Corinna Jakobs’s colleague and fiancé, also visits her on the island. Nevertheless, the two single parents grow closer. Groote turns up at the regional court trial without the lawyer he is required to have, but with a young seal, and points out that humans have alternative sources of food, whereas a seal depends on fish. Groote loses, but Corinna Jakobs had demanded that the 50,000 marks go to an environmental organization rather than to Petersen. She now resigns from the law firm, because she wants to handle only cases she considers morally acceptable. When the two parents have to rescue their children from distress at sea, caused by the boat operator Opa Harms suffering a heart problem, the environmentalist and the lawyer finally set a course for a future together.