Liebe ist unberechenbar (2021)

Mathematics professor Leonard Damovsky has social anxiety. He avoids direct contact with other people and tries to stay away from events with large crowds. Damovsky has a research assignment on climate change in the area around Brandenburg, which he can pursue without much social interaction. But this idyll is abruptly shattered when Stefan Bach, head of the university’s public relations department, assigns him to a new lecture series intended to introduce students to “the magic of numbers.” Bach pairs him with Judith Kreuzer, with whom he is intimately involved. Although she actually works at a campus breakfast café, she needs the job to keep living in her apartment, which is to be rented only to university employees in the future. The people-shy Damovsky tries to fob off his new colleague, since he prefers to work alone and also considers her insufficiently qualified. But he has no choice. Bach insists. Damovsky reluctantly gives in, and it is clear from the very first day how different their personalities are. While he avoids human closeness, she actively seeks it out. Damovsky thinks Kreuzer talks far too much and is usually too loud, too. But Kreuzer is not his only problem. After repeatedly violating the rules, his father has been expelled from the retirement home where he was staying. Damovsky immediately tries to find him a new place, but that proves difficult. So, for the time being, Franz Damovsky has to live with his son. Leonard is annoyed: his over-the-top father thinks no joke is too outrageous, and the peace he had been looking forward to is gone for now. When Bach meets Franz Damovsky, whom he remembers as a famous comedian from his earlier years, he gets the idea that Franz should help shape his son’s first mathematics lecture. To get through it, Leonard has to take enough medication, which unfortunately also has severe side effects and makes him drowsy. So he lets Judith Kreuzer in on his problem, and, true to her sociable nature, she tries to help wherever she can. His father, by contrast, is less tactful and humiliates his son thoroughly. As a result, Bach’s boss cancels the teaching project and sends Leonard back to his research. He could be satisfied, but his father causes him trouble again: Franz has decided to look after himself and has disappeared. After searching for hours with Judith, Leonard finds him in hospital following a collapse due to circulatory problems. There, the two finally get the chance to talk things over a little. Franz tells his son for the first time that he is proud of him. By now, Leonard is convinced that the planned mathematics teaching program actually has potential. He wants to persuade the dean not to cancel it, but to have Judith carry it out under his guidance. Over the past few days, he has come to appreciate her and her remarkable teaching talent. When he tries to share his idea with Judith, he cannot reach her, and her longtime lover Bach tells him that the two of them are flying to Manchester, where he has received an offer. Leonard, bewildered, has to pull himself together, summons all his courage, and drives after her to the airport. Overcoming his social phobia, he “fights” his way through the waiting passengers and brings Judith back.