Männer aus zweiter Hand (1999)

Sarah Urban is a self-employed optician. Her employee is Vera, a shy woman. Sarah has been divorced from her husband, Ralf, for a year and has custody of their son, Benny, who also regularly spends time with his father. Instead of looking for a new husband, Sarah only seeks affairs with married men. The married urologist Eberhard fits the bill perfectly. But Eberhard turns out to be a cleanliness fanatic and has a penchant for seedy hotels. Their attempts to spend time alone together are also repeatedly interrupted by calls from his wife or sudden family obligations. After one such disappointment, Sarah drowns her sorrows at a bar, where she meets Dario, a photographer. But here, too, a lasting relationship founders because of his wife, Wanda, a wealthy older woman on whom he is financially dependent. Benny is somewhat neglected amid his mother’s escapades. He is having increasingly frequent problems at school, and he has not given up hope that his parents will reconcile. After all, they still meet regularly when they take turns looking after him. So he drives away his father’s girlfriend, prompting Ralf to realize that Sarah means more to him than he would like to admit. But in the end, Sarah also comes to realize that she is better off with Ralf than with her lovers.