Endlich Frühling (2015)

Village caregiver Katja Baumann’s new case takes her to the farm of the Feichtmayr family. While the eldest daughter was on the phone, her three-year-old brother Benny nearly drowned in the bathtub. He is now in a coma in the intensive care unit at the hospital in Frühling. While Benny’s mother, Sonja, stays by her son’s side at the clinic, Katja plans to look after the two daughters and the farm. The younger girl, Christina, is fairly outgoing, but Laura behaves very coldly. She won’t even let her mother comfort her, and Katja finds it hard to get through to her. The children’s father, Ludwig Feichtmayr, is a truck driver and is rarely home. The siblings are therefore left to fend for themselves much of the time, and Katja also stays with them overnight. Katja talks to Laura’s father and tells him that his daughter needs a great deal of attention right now. The village caregiver feels that Laura is blaming herself deeply and may be acting so coldly for that reason. Even little Christina is on the receiving end of her big sister’s emotional outbursts. Katja is somewhat at a loss as to what is behind Laura’s extreme hostility. By chance, she notices Laura hiding a bottle of schnapps, but it is not Laura who is alcohol-dependent—it is her mother. Until now, both children have been protecting Sonja so no one would realize that the family really needed the intervention of child welfare services. Afraid their family might be split up, they have tried to take all the work off their mother’s hands. Katja persists, and with great empathy she eventually succeeds in winning Laura’s trust. She also keeps Laura’s secret and speaks about it only with Laura’s father, but he reacts differently than Katja expected and throws her off the farm. He, too, refuses to acknowledge his wife’s drinking problem. Since Benny is doing better by now and his mother wants to return to the farm, Katja fears things will carry on as before unless Laura’s mother finally confronts her alcoholism. Because Katja can empathize with the situation, she tries to persuade Laura’s mother to undergo treatment for her addiction. But the woman remains unreceptive. Only when the problems on the farm worsen again and Sonja Feichtmayr nearly sets the house on fire, prompting Laura to run away, does Sonja realize for the first time that something has to change. Laura runs to Katja and confesses that it is not only her mother who drinks, but her father as well, and that he was the one who put Benny in the bathtub and then fell asleep. Just as she finishes her confession, Laura’s father arrives and wants to take his daughter home. But she refuses to go with him. He, too, slowly begins to see that things cannot go on this way. Some time later, Katja receives a letter from Laura telling her that they are all on the right track. Katja’s private life is just as turbulent. Things are gradually getting rocky between veterinarian Mark and his girlfriend Sophie, and Kiki’s boyfriend Sam is turning into a militant animal-rights activist, causing Mark major problems. But Sam is right to have one of the farms inspected, since animal-welfare regulations have been violated there.