Familie Fröhlich - Schlimmer geht immer (2010)

Forty-nine-year-old Bernd Fröhlich has been unemployed for a year. Mr. Lämmle at the job center cannot really help him, but constantly makes him feel how dependent he is on him as a civil servant. All of Bernd’s attempts to find work fail, so he focuses more and more on caring for his family and managing the household. His wife Petra therefore has to provide for the family financially on her own, which she manages quite well through evening sales parties. Their older daughter Mia is reluctant for a long time to introduce her boyfriend to her parents, because she is embarrassed that circumstances have forced them to switch roles. She has kept this from Jakob, too. He, for his part, thinks it is completely unacceptable for men to leave their wives to do everything on their own. Mia’s parents disapprove of his laid-back attitude to life, which shows no sign of a career direction. A reporter from the “Abendmagazin” wants to do a feature on househusbands and, while conducting a survey, happens to come across Bernd Fröhlich, who agrees because of the fee he expects to receive. But the program, in which he had hoped to work in his job search, turns out simply to be embarrassing. When he has to attend a job-application seminar ordered by Lämmle, the other participants laugh at him over his television appearance. He promptly walks out of the seminar, and is next assigned a “one-euro job”: picking up litter in the city park. Things at home come to a head when the Fröhlichs learn that their daughter Mia is pregnant. Since the future grandparents also want to meet Jacob’s parents, they get together at their home one evening. Bernd Fröhlich is astonished and unpleasantly surprised to discover that Lämmle is none other than Jacob’s father. Petra Fröhlich is surprised, too, since she has already met Gabriele Lämmle, one of her most eager-to-buy customers. Bernd cannot help immediately throwing some of his own familiar catchphrases at the civil servant, so that he will finally give his own son a nudge in the right direction. Although Lämmle is the last person Fröhlich would want to be related to, he nevertheless gives him a few tips on how to cope better with his unemployment in the future. Things at the Fröhlichs’ grow ever more turbulent. Mia realizes that Jacob may not be right for her, and Bernd also has reason to suspect that Petra might be cheating on him when he thinks his wife has gone on a business trip with her boss. Lämmle admits that he has long been frustrated with his job because he cannot find people work when there are no jobs available. This makes Bernd realize that he has actually already found the right job for himself. He is a shoulder to cry on, a manager, a cook, a chauffeur, and simply always there for others. To help Mia get over her heartbreak, he contacts Jakob, who had panicked about running out of time when Mia immediately started talking about marriage. The plan works, and the young lovers make up. When the baby is born, everyone gets along splendidly, and Bernd has even managed to secure a permanent job as a cook and caretaker at a kindergarten, thanks to his most recent “one-euro job.”