Ein Vater zum Verlieben (2001)

Ina Brosche plays a little joke on her father: after a holiday in Mallorca, she claims that the Berlin businessman Richard Brosche has another illegitimate daughter there. Unbeknownst to her, she is right, because her father really did cheat on his wife Claudia when he was a young man. He spent a wonderful night with Hanna, a tour guide, and Antonia was conceived. She is now about the same age as Ina. For the time being, Richard keeps the secret to himself, telling only his childhood friend Max. But when he is passed over for an important promotion and finds his wife in the arms of a rival, he flees to Mallorca to see Hanna, who now runs a successful country hotel on the Balearic island. He checks in under an assumed name and without any luggage, immediately drawing attention with his strange behavior. Antonia and her mother Hanna take him for a spy working for the competition and want to get rid of him as quickly as possible. As luck would have it, the cook gets injured and is suddenly unable to work. Because of his corpulent build, the hotel guests mistake Richard for the cook, and he unwillingly takes over the role as a temporary replacement. In the process, he realizes that he enjoys it immensely and that it seems to be his true passion. However, the situation grows increasingly complicated as Claudia, Ina, and Max arrive in Mallorca one after another. Richard discovers that Claudia had also been unfaithful, and that his daughter Ina is not his at all. Claudia, who had come to ask her husband for forgiveness, now faces the wreckage of their marriage. While she opens up to Hanna and Antonia, Richard drowns his sorrows in wine and takes refuge with Hanna’s cook, who lets him stay at his finca. When Richard tells Max this devastating news, he learns that his best friend Max is Ina’s father. This makes his world collapse completely. He finds a rope and intends to hang himself. He does not take his own weight into account, however, and the finca’s porch roof collapses under him. Immediately after this failed suicide attempt, “his” two daughters show up to prove that, whatever happened in the past, they stand by him. But he pushes them away. Disappointed, they turn away, and on the way back Ina tumbles down a rocky slope. Seeing her lying unconscious before him, he feels how much he loves her. In the end, he also manages to reconcile with Claudia and can imagine working as a cook at Hanna’s hotel in the future.