Feine Dame (2006)

Forty-year-old Regina Steinberg is the mother of 20-year-old Marcella and the wife of dentist Dr. Julius Steinberg. Regina considers herself a self-sacrificing wife and mother. Others see her as a domineering egotist. Marcella can no longer stand living with her mother and moves into the shared apartment where her boyfriend Martin lives. She also drops out of university to begin an apprenticeship as a baker with her boyfriend’s parents. After Julius’s 80-year-old mother Klara suffers a spell of weakness, he starts looking for a new dental office assistant. By chance, Regina runs into her former friend Nora, who lost her job at a pharmaceutical company after a takeover and is now looking for a new position. Nora is childless and divorced; her husband had cheated on her for six years. Nora and Regina have known each other since elementary school, but had not seen each other for twenty years. Back then, Regina married Julius even though she was pregnant by Marcel. Nora wonders whether she is suited to working as an office assistant. Regina sees no problem, since even her mother-in-law managed the job. If it doesn’t work out, Nora can always work as Regina’s cleaner, after the previous cleaner—who had been employed without being officially registered—quit because of Regina. Regina goes to a health resort with her mother, Nanni Körber. While she is away, Nora is supposed to keep a watchful eye on Julius, because Regina fears her husband is cheating on her. In time, Julius and Nora grow closer, and the two begin an affair. When Regina returns, she finds a farewell letter in which Julius informs her that they are separating. Regina then cries on Nora’s shoulder and confesses that Julius had only been a stand-in for Marcel, and that she named her daughter Marcella after her father. Later, Regina discovers that Nora is the woman Julius is having an affair with. Eventually, Regina, Julius, and Marcella have it out. Regina admits that Julius was not the great love of her life. Julius says he “took over” Regina after she no longer wanted his best friend Marcel, who had another woman. Marcella announces that Julius and Regina are going to be grandparents, and Julius and Regina stay together. After Marcella’s child is born, she wants to move in with her new boyfriend, Sergio, an Italian. Marcella leaves the child in her mother’s care. By chance, Regina overhears a phone conversation between Julius and his mother, in which he invites his mother to a meal with Nora. After Regina sticks a pin into a voodoo doll, Nora collapses and dies during a meal with Julius. Nora’s father, Georg Moor, and Regina happen to meet at Nora’s grave. According to Georg, heart failure was determined to be the cause of Nora’s death. When he asks Regina how her heart is doing, she replies, “I don’t have one.”