Es ist alles in Ordnung (2014)

Birgit is on summer vacation in Holland with her husband Andreas, their son Philipp, and her 13-year-old daughter Sarah from a previous relationship. The family idyll seems perfect, disrupted only subtly by Sarah’s excessive, adolescent provocations directed at Andreas. On the drive home, a trivial matter sparks a fierce argument. Tempers flare: Sarah slaps her uninvolved little brother, and Andreas then throws her out of the car. Back home, Sarah’s provocations intensify. Andreas feels increasingly helpless and complains to his wife that she is not supporting him. Birgit tries to placate him, saying that Andreas’s planned adoption of Sarah will resolve all of Sarah’s problems. Overwhelmed by the situation and disappointed by Birgit’s lack of solidarity, Andreas leaves the family. Birgit suffers greatly from the separation. Having grown up without a father, she cannot live out her ideal of a happy family without a man. She seeks comfort from her daughter, but blames her alone for Andreas moving out. In her distress, Birgit loses touch with reality and leaves Sarah to organize their daily life. She also makes Sarah promise to keep Andreas’s departure secret from their friends and neighbors. Sarah tries to fulfill her responsibilities, but her distress soon becomes evident in increasingly aggressive behavior toward her classmates. By now, Birgit is so overwhelmed that she suffers sudden hearing loss and is admitted to hospital. Andreas is worried and takes care of her. Sarah gratefully accepts Andreas’s help, and he moves back in with his family. But the conflicts flare up again very quickly. Andreas now responds to Sarah’s hostility with open violence. Sarah mouths off, Andreas hits her, and the two make up. When Sarah finally shows her mother the injuries and bruises Andreas has inflicted on her, Birgit accuses her of lying. Left alone, Sarah now directs her aggression at Birgit as well. Andreas’s violent attacks become more frequent and more brutal. Birgit notices what is happening, but in her desperate attempt to live out a clichéd family idyll, she fails to understand the situation, even as friends and neighbors increasingly ask her about Sarah’s physical injuries. When she and Philipp come across Sarah, battered and locked in the cellar, Birgit can no longer evade reality. Birgit and the children leave the house.