Die Beste zum Schluss (2025)

Mads is a 44-year-old architect in Cologne whose partner, Jenny, died in 2022. Since then, he has lost his zest for life. They had chosen their new apartment together, and although he moved in a year and three months ago, it is still largely empty. By chance, he runs into his childhood friend René, who runs a snack stand and returned from Asia a year ago after spending 25 years there. Like Mads, René is single, and she now has two children, nine-year-old Lola and six-year-old Oscar, while Mads has no children of his own. The children’s father stayed behind in Asia with the babysitter. René’s mother, Marlies, has died, and her father, Kurt Hanke, lives in Aachen. René moves into Mads’s apartment with her two children. Kurt had always expected René and Mads to marry one day, but the two have only a platonic relationship. At Mads’s architecture firm, his colleagues wonder whether he is impotent or gay, and whether that is why he is carrying on a sham platonic relationship. René and Mads decide to find partners for each other. To do so, they go to a company party hosted by Mads’s employer on a party boat on the Rhine, where Mads meets Eva. The three of them share a taxi on the way home. Since Eva has no other plans, she goes back to Mads’s place. After talking for a long time, they fall asleep drunk. To make sure Eva and Mads see each other again, René takes Eva’s wallet, which Mads then brings to her. Eva, Mads, René, and the two children go trampolining together. Soon afterward, Eva tells Mads that she is moving to Canada permanently the next day, to leave everything behind and start a new life. Eva and Mads then spend their first and last night making love. The next day, he takes her to the airport. After arguing with Benedict Donato, a client of his architecture firm, Mads decides to take the rest of his vacation. His boss, Hans von der Reich, had promised him when he hired him that Mads would be allowed to manage major projects. René learns that she has a brain tumor. She tries not to let the children notice. Kurt urges Mads to consider that it would be better for René’s legal protection if they got married. Mads spontaneously decides to fly to Canada and look for Eva. He wants to be back before René’s operation in two days. René and Mads agree to marry if the operation reveals that the tumor is malignant. Mads does find Eva in Canada, and they spend a night making love. He explains the situation with René and says that the two of them might get married, but that he also wants to spend more time with Eva. Eva confesses that she likes him more than Canada. Later, the viewer learns that René died in 2056 at the age of 73, after the tumor turned out to be benign. Mads had a family with René and a family with Eva.