Die Dienstagsfrauen (2011)

The friends Caroline, Eva, Estelle, and Judith have been meeting every month on a Tuesday for 15 years. Once a year, they take a short trip together. All four are very different. Caroline is a successful lawyer and has been married for years. Eva is a typical homemaker whose family means everything to her, and whom she naturally spoils excessively—hardly encouraging independence in her three children and husband. Estelle is a wealthy businesswoman with pampered expectations, while Judith is the most sensitive of them all; her husband died recently. When she finds his diary, which documents his regular trips along the French section of the Way of St. James, she decides to walk the route herself in order to feel close to him once more. Her loyal friends offer to accompany Judith on the journey to Lourdes instead of taking their usual trip, and so all four set off together on the arduous trek. Arne’s diary serves as their guide, and whenever Judith reads it, she loses herself in old memories. Before long, Caroline emerges as a strict trip manager and takes charge of the decisions. Eva still cannot detach herself from her family and is constantly on the phone, since those back home are at a loss without their dependable family manager. Meanwhile, the fun-loving, always perfectly styled Estelle has trouble getting her custom-made off-road suitcase over the uneven nature trails. As they continue along the pilgrimage route, the four friends’ lives begin to change, and tensions start to surface. Caroline finds the entries in Arne’s diary increasingly strange and feels they are leading them in the wrong direction. She turns out to be not entirely wrong: Estelle discovers online that Arne copied the route description from the internet. Judith, however, is determined to continue along “his” route and initially sticks to it. Only when she notices the name Dominique in the diary does it gradually become clear that Judith’s husband’s trips were apparently not about enlightenment and finding self-knowledge. Over the course of the journey, several delicate secrets come to light, and the friendship between the four women is put to a severe test. Caroline learns that, of all people, Judith had an affair with her husband, and that she also wanted to do a little penance by walking the pilgrimage route. Eva realizes that she does not have to put up with everything from her family, and that it does her a lot of good to stand up for her own interests and opinions from time to time. And Estelle recognizes that she can also show a vulnerable side in her life and does not have to cover everything up with superficialities.