Ein Ferienhaus auf Ibiza (2008)

At her mother Greta’s invitation, divorce lawyer Henriette travels with her husband Torsten to Ibiza, where she plans to spend a relaxing ten-day holiday at her parents’ vacation home. A short time later, however, her sister Karla arrives with her daughter Lucy, along with her brother Max. The siblings have been at odds ever since a major family argument the previous Christmas. Karla called Henriette a greedy woman who profited from other people’s misery. Henriette called Karla, a children’s book translator, a loser. Max, a chef, had received 30,000 euros from Henriette to help him set up his own restaurant, but had to declare bankruptcy. This has also put him at odds with his father Herbert, who has successfully run his own restaurant for 30 years. Before the siblings can even figure out why all three of them have ended up at the vacation home, Greta appears. She tells them that their father plans to disinherit them. He wants to sell the restaurant and give the money to a foundation. The reason, she says, is his immense disappointment with his children’s behavior at Christmas. Herbert will arrive in Ibiza the next day to celebrate his 44th wedding anniversary with Greta. Greta hopes the children will manage to make up by then and make a good impression on their father. Then, she says, he will quickly change his mind. But the siblings’ positions are entrenched, and their quarrels keep flaring up. Henriette eventually packs her things and prepares to move with Torsten to a hotel on the other side of the island, just as Herbert arrives at the vacation home. He is delighted to see his children all together, so Henriette is forced to stay. The tensions only grow, however, as time goes on, since the egocentric Herbert finds fault with all his children. He criticizes Karla’s lax parenting, for example, and is unhappy with his son’s cooking. He sees Henriette as the only one with a perfect life, but he is mistaken. Karla has happened to see Torsten with another woman at a hotel and hinted as much to Henriette. Henriette secretly follows Torsten and sees him with the blonde. She confronts him at the vacation home, and he admits to having a brief affair with his colleague Anja, who secretly followed him to Ibiza. Henriette throws him out. Although Torsten soon realizes that Anja is not right for him and that he does not want to give up his wife, he cannot change Henriette’s mind. When he claims he has known Anja only a short time and has met her only very rarely, Henriette shows him his phone bill from the past two years, with the numerous calls to Anja marked. Their marriage is over. In Ibiza, Karla has met Pedro, a veterinarian to whom she took an injured stray she had found. She begins a tentative affair with Pedro, but breaks it off when she thinks he is only after a holiday fling. Only when she realizes that she really means something to him does she give their relationship a chance. Greta and Herbert’s marriage, meanwhile, is put to the test on their 44th wedding anniversary. Greta asks Herbert to help Max, who has had no professional success despite trying hard. Herbert refuses, and Greta is so appalled by her husband’s egocentric nature that they have a marital row. Only then does Herbert begin to reconsider. He reaches out to his children, and by the end they find common ground. Max will take over as head chef at Herbert’s restaurant; Herbert and Henriette will handle the legal matters and accounts, while Karla will, among other things, translate the menus. Herbert decides that the family should take a vacation together every year, but they start arguing again as soon as they begin looking for possible destinations for future trips.