Küss die Hand, Krüger (2018)

As he often does, Paul Krüger meets his friends Bernd and Ecki one evening at his regular pub, the “Flachbau.” They are horrified when landlady Karin tells them that she has fallen in love, intends to sell the pub, and wants to move to Austria to be with the love of her life. Bernd is especially disappointed, since he has been secretly in love with Karin for years. His friends encourage him to follow her and bring her back. Bernd sleeps on it for a night and is determined to go through with the plan. However, Paul is supposed to go with him. After hours on the road, the two arrive at Lake Wolfgang and plan to stay at the same hotel as Karin. But she has already left. What’s more, the hotel is full, and with nowhere else to stay, Paul and Bernd are forced to spend the night in their car. The next day, they try to get in touch with Karin, but only reach her voicemail. The hotel porter does tell them, though, that their friend has gone to Salzburg with a Mr. Falkenheyn-Waldstätten. The two set off after her. Karin is visibly uncomfortable when Paul and Bernd turn up unannounced. She makes it clear that they should go away again and leave her alone. Bernd is on the verge of actually leaving, but Paul says, “Giving up isn’t an option.” After all, it’s also a matter of “their Flachbau.” So they check into a small guesthouse and decide to “go have a drink” first. But German pub culture is noticeably different from Austrian pub culture, and Paul has his problems with the landlord. Karin, too, does not exactly fit in with the more refined company Hansi keeps, thanks to her blunt Berlin manner. But Hansi is determined to marry the woman he adores as soon as possible—in two days’ time, in fact. Karin thinks that is a little fast, but she is so in love that she doesn’t give it any further thought. Paul, however, does. He suspects something may be wrong and calls his daughter so she can look into the “Flachbau’s” market value. Susanne quickly finds out that the property must be worth at least 500,000 euros given its location in Berlin, and Paul is convinced that the noble Mr. Falkenheyn-Waldstätten is only after Karin’s money. To prove it, they first have to convince Karin that her Hansi is a fraud who is merely pretending to be a hotel owner. Poldi, the café owner, comes to their aid: he perks up when the two mention the name Falkenheyn-Waldstätten, since that man nearly stole his girlfriend from him years ago. When Paul and Poldi do some more investigating, they learn that Waldstätten’s former wife Rosie lost both all her money and her position because of the con man. Paul now fears that Karin is headed for the same fate. He is determined to warn her, now certain that Waldstätten is a textbook marriage swindler. But Karin refuses to listen and says only that Paul and Bernd don’t want her to be happy. The two make one last attempt, persuading Karin, despite her fear of heights, to go with them to see the cable-car hotel that Waldstätten has always claimed was his. They resort to a trick, sending Poldi to Karin’s hotel as the chauffeur Waldstätten supposedly sent to pick her up. Paul and Bernd are already waiting in the car. They force her to go with them to the mountain hotel so she can meet its real owner. At last, she believes her friends. Deeply hurt by having been so mistaken about someone, she does not yet know how she will get over the disappointment. Paul comforts her and tells her that she does have friends. In the end, Paul also takes a lesson from the experience: you have to live life while it is happening. He makes his dream come true and goes to Vienna to ride the Ferris wheel, something he had always wanted to do with his wife but had never found the time for because of all his work. And later, Hilde was no longer there. Back in Berlin, he pays for his granddaughter’s long-delayed honeymoon—on the condition that she sets off immediately instead of putting it off any longer.