Nichts für Feiglinge (2014)

Twenty-three-year-old music student Philip lives with two friends, Ulli, a media studies student, and Mehmet, a law student, in a typical shared student flat with the usual money problems. At the beginning of the film, he meets Doro, his landlord’s daughter, and falls in love with her. His life is full enough with his exam obligations at the conservatory and his new love. His 72-year-old grandmother Lisbeth raised him after his parents died when he was five. However, because the former art and history teacher always keeps the people around her at a distance with her sharp-tongued, domineering manner, the two of them have never developed a loving relationship. So he meets her only reluctantly once a week. The only thing he is happy to accept from her is money. Suddenly, however, Lisbeth begins exhibiting increasingly unusual behavior: she is found by the police, confused, in the city center; she plugs the television into a flowerpot, claiming that the remote control is broken; and in general she becomes very irritable and increasingly forgetful. Philip takes her to a clinic, where she is diagnosed with vascular dementia. At first, Philip refuses to accept this and tries to ignore the problem. That is, until one day Lisbeth nearly sets her apartment on fire because she has forgotten about the iron. After her landlord terminates her lease, and seeing no other option, Philip looks for a place for his grandmother in a nursing home, which the resolute woman vehemently resists. Once there, she refuses to be told what to do and, after a minor scuffle on her first evening, is sedated by the nursing staff and restrained in bed. Lisbeth’s neurologist also tells Philip that his grandmother may be planning suicide. Philip regrets his selfish behavior and, spurred above all by Doro, looks for another solution for his grandmother. On the spur of the moment, he moves the elderly woman into the shared flat, at least temporarily. His roommates are anything but pleased at first, but in time Lisbeth becomes an important and popular member of the household. The relationship between grandmother and grandson also improves, and they slowly develop a trusting bond in which they are there for each other. Nevertheless, a more permanent solution has to be found for Lisbeth. Philip’s girlfriend Doro takes on the role of his “bad conscience,” and the two part in an argument. Philip eventually finds a care home, Villa Grünfeld, in the countryside, since he can no longer deny that Lisbeth’s health is getting worse and that she needs round-the-clock care. Doro and Philip reconcile after a joint search for Lisbeth and a conversation prompted by her. Lisbeth feels very comfortable in the home, where, among other things, she finds an intellectually stimulating conversational partner in the director, Dr. Schneider, thanks to her background as a former history teacher. She lives at the home for two more years, until one day she sets out on a bike ride—a situation that reminds her of the happiest moment of her childhood—and never returns. While still fairly clear-minded, she had left Philip a farewell letter, in which she thanks him once more for the lovely time in the shared flat and for being like a real son to her as a grandson, even if it took some time. With Doro’s support, he completes his music studies, and during his graduation performance of Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, he sees Lisbeth sitting in the audience, smiling encouragingly at him.