Fenster zum Sommer (2011)

It is summer, and Juliane, a translator of technical documentation, is traveling through Finland with her new love, August, on the way to her annual visit to her father. They stop by a lake and enjoy their time together. That evening, the couple fall asleep together in his car. Before that, Juliane remembers her best friend Emily, who was killed in a traffic accident in Berlin right before her eyes. She feels guilty about the accident because she had arranged to meet Emily, who was run over on her way to their meeting place. The next morning, Juliane unexpectedly wakes up in Berlin. It is winter, and she is back in her old relationship with her boss, Philipp. Time has been turned back by six months, and only Juliane knows it. At first she is confused and thinks she must be having a bad dream. But while viewing an apartment with Philipp, she can remember the entire conversation between the estate agent and Philipp before the two of them have finished talking. She realizes that she is in her own past and wonders whether she can change what is going to happen. She waits for May 12, the day she will meet August and he will fall in love with her. But it is also the day Emily was run over. In the meantime, Juliane tries to help Emily, who goes from one unhappy relationship to another. One evening, Emily has another date with a man. As a single mother, she asks Juliane to look after her son, Otto. He refuses to go to sleep until Juliane tells him a bedtime story. Juliane tells him about her current situation, but lets Otto believe that it happened during her own imaginative childhood. She also tells him that she had been waiting for a very special day—the May 12 mentioned earlier—because on that day her father would return to her and the family after a long absence. She had been looking forward to it so much because her father had promised to take her to the Tivoli amusement park. She tells Otto about the “compulsion” to do everything all over again exactly as it had happened before, so that the desired event will take place. Otto, however, thinks Juliane can do whatever she wants until that date. If she is sure the event will happen anyway, he reasons, it does not matter what she does before then. The only thing she must not do is argue with her father. Juliane leaves the story’s ending open and promises to tell it next time. After an argument with Philipp, Juliane moves out of their apartment and takes a hotel room. She writes August a letter in which she reveals herself to him and gives him detailed information about his likes and wishes to make her letter more credible. She asks him to meet her at a restaurant and hopes he will recognize her. But as she waits for him at the counter, she realizes that his partner has intercepted the letter and is making a scene with him in public. After his partner leaves the restaurant, Juliane follows August to another bar. There he speaks to her, and the two spend a carefree evening together. Juliane tells him about her regular trips to visit her father in Finland. August is fascinated by Juliane and her work as a translator. He regrets that he knows only one sentence in Finnish, without knowing what it means: “Ei arka mies saa kaunista akkaa.” Juliane whispers the translation in his ear: “A shy man doesn’t get a beautiful woman.” After a passionate night, however, August leaves the woman he does not know, and Juliane is left alone with her worries once again. She decides not to try to arrange any more meetings with August, but instead to wait for the day he will fall in love with her. She has another argument with Philipp, whose outcome she can also predict. Philipp finds the situation hard to cope with, and their relationship is on the verge of ending. Juliane, too, is completely exhausted by her efforts to make everything happen exactly as it did before, and she suffers a breakdown. She is taken to hospital and examined to assess her mental state. Since the doctors can find no illness, however, she is discharged. Philipp wants to pick her up, but Juliane would rather move in with Emily temporarily to get away from the situation. Before that, she resigns from her job. Meanwhile, Emily has fallen in love again and wants to celebrate Otto’s birthday with her new partner. She is unsure what would make Otto happy. Juliane suggests that the three of them go to Copenhagen and visit Tivoli, and offers to pay for the trip. She wants to prevent Emily from being in the city on the day of her expected accident. Emily says she will discuss it with her new boyfriend. On the long-awaited day, May 12, Juliane first prepares to do everything again as before, in order to meet August. Suddenly, Emily calls Juliane in a state of distress. Her new boyfriend does not agree to the short holiday, so she will be staying in Berlin. Juliane tries to stop Emily from going out in the city and asks to meet near Alexanderplatz, where Emily is at that moment. But Emily insists on meeting at a particular café, the meeting place outside which the accident happened. On her way there, Juliane first takes the tram so she can meet August again, just as it had happened in the future. But the encounter does not go as Juliane remembers. August does not notice her, so she rushes off the tram to take a taxi and get to her meeting with Emily faster, in an attempt to prevent the accident. August recognizes the woman he does not know, but can no longer follow her. As Juliane urges the taxi driver to go faster, she suddenly recognizes him as the man who ran over Emily. She yells at him to stop. He slams on the brakes, bringing the taxi to a halt just short of a pedestrian. Juliane recognizes the pedestrian—it is Emily, and so the spell seems to be broken. Since the trip to Tivoli has fallen through, they pick Otto up together and go to a water park. But only a few hours later, Emily is actually killed in a car accident. Juliane picks Otto up from school, and the two travel to her father in Finland to get some distance from everything. On the ferry, she meets August, who has been traveling back and forth between Germany and Finland for days in the hope of seeing her again. The two are now together and travel with Otto to Juliane’s father.