In fremden Händen (2026)

The wealthy widower Wolfgang Schneeammer meets the charming Karola Bussard at an Alpine hotel. After a fall, he increasingly needs help, so Karola moves in with him and lovingly takes care of him. Wolfgang’s daughters, Jana and Verena, are happy for their father’s late-in-life happiness, but grow suspicious as Karola gains more and more influence over Wolfgang’s life and increasingly isolates him from those around him. The more skeptical Jana openly confronts Karola about inconsistencies, which Karola is able to explain, but Wolfgang angrily throws his two daughters out of the house. Karola uses this conflict to make each side believe that the other has cut off contact. She systematically makes Wolfgang dependent on her, takes over his mobile phone number, withholds Jana’s letter of apology, and gets him to grant her power of attorney over his bank account. By the time Jana discovers that Karola’s biography is real but belongs to another woman, Wolfgang’s condition has deteriorated so badly because of the cocktail of medication Karola has been giving him that he is practically helpless. The police regret that they cannot do anything without concrete evidence, but tell them about another victim, who immediately recognizes Karola in a photo as the woman who robbed his father and drove him to his death. When the sisters finally break into Wolfgang’s house and find it empty, they learn from the neighbors that Wolfgang was taken to a care home weeks ago; there, they are told that he was soon transferred to a clinic. They find him there in a coma; he dies shortly afterward. His fortune and all the valuables in the house have completely disappeared, the house is up for sale, and his daughters are left with nothing. At the Alpine hotel, Karola flirts with her next wealthy senior. The daughters confront her there. Knowing that nothing can be proven against her without a statement from Wolfgang, she faces them with arrogance and self-righteousness. In the heat of the moment, Verena pushes her down a staircase, and Jana presents it as an accident. In the end, Jana visits Karola, who is almost completely paralyzed, and hangs a photo of Wolfgang on the wall, which Karola is now forced to look at.