Mein Fleisch und Blut (2016)

Martin Trummer, who is at home recovering from burnout, has a six-year-old adopted son, Tobias, with his wife Katharina. Tobias has a developmental disorder. The Trummers adopted the full orphan as a baby; according to Katharina, his biological parents died in a car accident shortly after his birth. Since then, the Trummers have tried to provide their son with an orderly, normal family life. Tobias lives in his own world, does not speak much, is afraid of water, and needs his daily routine to remain fairly consistent. If something does not go as expected, he breathes heavily. Katharina and Martin do not know whether Tobias is autistic or has experienced something traumatic. Nicole, a trained pediatric nurse, and Christian, a young couple from the Mostviertel region, move into the neighboring house, which had been vacant for a long time. They seem very nice, Tobias gets on remarkably well with Nicole, and he begins to open up in her presence. She immediately connects with the boy, who suddenly is no longer afraid of water. Nicole tells Martin that she had a brother, Stefan, who killed himself. At first, Katharina and Martin are happy about Tobias’s progress. However, Martin accidentally discovers through the real estate agent that the couple are squatters, something Nicole also admits to him. She lets Martin believe that her boyfriend hit her because of this, and seduces Martin. Martin becomes suspicious and starts spying on them. Through his brother Thomas, a police officer, he has the couple and the license plate of their VW van checked. Thomas identifies Nicole as Judith Haller. Until recently, Nicole/Judith had been in a psychiatric hospital after attempting to kill her own child several years earlier. She was discharged as cured. Christian blackmails Martin: he wants Martin to buy the neighboring house for him and his girlfriend, or he will tell Martin’s wife about Martin’s affair with Nicole. Nicole/Judith claims she is Tobias’s mother and wants her son back; several years earlier, she tried to drown him. The police records give the birth date of Nicole/Judith’s son, and it matches Tobias’s. The real estate agent, Mrs. Berger, has disappeared after being seen at the neighboring house a few days earlier. Acting on a tip from Martin, the police intend to evict the couple for trespassing, but they too have disappeared by the next day. During a search of the house, Thomas and Martin find a camera containing footage of Nicole/Judith and Martin having sex. Martin visits Nicole/Judith’s childhood home, which is furnished with religious symbols and pictures, but finds it deserted and somewhat rundown. Alois Riederer, the witness who rescued the child at the time, tells Martin what happened during Judith’s attack. At the scene of the incident, Martin finds a shoe in the lake that leads him to the bodies of Judith’s parents. Meanwhile, after seeing the video of Judith and Martin, Katharina takes Tobias to a hotel. Martin manages to decipher part of Judith’s coded diary. It reveals that she suffered under her deeply religious parents and hid her pregnancy from them out of fear. After reading the newspaper headline “Adoption agent took bribes,” Katharina checks out of the hotel. On the drive home, Judith and her boyfriend follow her. When her car breaks down, Katharina flees into the forest with Tobias to escape them. There, Judith tells Tobias that she is his real mother, after which Judith and Christian disappear again. According to a newspaper report, the adoption agent was murdered, and Judith and Christian are considered suspects by the police. The adoption agent had also falsified the records of several children, including Tobias’s. Christian and Judith, armed, break into the Trummers’ house and force them to hand Tobias over. Judith shoots Katharina, seriously wounding her. Martin takes her to hospital, where the bullet is removed from her lung. In the meantime, the missing real estate agent is found dead in the Danube. On her website, Martin finds a listing for a house on Lake Weissensee. There, he tracks down Christian, Judith, and Tobias. Christian confesses to Martin that Judith was supposed to kill her son at the urging of her very religious mother. It also turns out that Christian is not only Tobias’s father but Judith’s brother as well. She takes her own life with the gun. Martin manages to get Tobias to safety, and the two return to Katharina.