Nimm Du ihn (2019)

The film begins with a big surprise for siblings Mareike, Dietrich, and Felicitas Reber. The social services office says it has found their father, Xaver, and that the three of them are to take care of him. They had been convinced their father was dead. None of them is prepared for this unexpected guest after 50 years; they still address him formally. The nursing home will not take him because of an alleged risk of suicide, and their attempt to leave him at a rest stop also fails. So the siblings pass their father back and forth like the buck. Teacher Felicitas has to take him to school with her, where Xaver immediately slaps her most difficult student in the face after the girl provokes him. The student is also the daughter of a lawyer who once bought the Rebers’ family home. When Xaver subsequently moves in with Dietrich, that brings problems too. His granddaughter likes the old eccentric, but when she climbs into bed with Grandpa, it is too much for Dietrich’s wife. Xaver has to go. Dietrich then tries to hand his father back to the authorities using a legal loophole, but without success. So Xaver has to move in with Mareike, a successful businesswoman whose boyfriend, Frank, has just moved in with her. The two take him dancing on the spur of the moment. He enjoys himself and eventually leaves with one of his dance partners. Gradually, the siblings and their father begin having more personal conversations. Because of what happened at the school, Felicitas decides to take Xaver to her former family home and apologize to the lawyer. It goes reasonably well, as lawyer Joachim Brokopp finds Felicitas likable. Xaver tries to look in the house for an old picture that a painter friend—and rival—once made of his wife, Jutta. The painter would like to buy it back for one million euros. Later, Xaver breaks into the house and retrieves the picture, but falls down the stairs. In the hospital, he runs into his dance partner, who works there as a nurse. A certain affection really does develop between Felicitas and Joachim, Frank proposes to Mareike, and Dietrich also manages to sort out his problems with his wife. By now, they are getting along well with their father too. But when Xaver wants to turn the picture into money with his new girlfriend, the mood changes. Since the siblings are the picture’s heirs, they keep it. They wonder whether Xaver had been after the money all along. But he says he wanted to sell it so he would not be a burden to the others. The family reconciles. In a notarized document, Jutta granted Xaver the right to live in her house for the rest of his life. So Xaver will move in with Joachim and Felicitas.