Problemzone Schwiegereltern (2004)

Lars and Annette want to get married. They invite their parents to a weekend to get to know one another, planning to announce their intentions on the occasion. The two sets of parents—Annette’s father Hermann, an arch-conservative army officer, and Ruth, Lars’s mother, a lesbian psychoanalyst from the old ’68 generation—clash. Lars and Annette do everything they can to make a good impression on their future in-laws, putting themselves under enormous pressure in the process. The first evening passes relatively smoothly, despite some awkward moments and embarrassment. But on the second day, the reception at Hermann’s old student fraternity, planned as a surprise, turns into a catastrophe because of Ruth’s appearance. The total incompatibility of the two sets of parents is only the smaller problem. But amid the stress of the weekend, Annette and Lars in particular get to know each other better—including each other’s darker sides. By the end of the weekend, their apartment and the officer’s convertible have been wrecked by water damage, Lars seems to have become impotent, and he cannot shake the suspicion that Annette is a lesbian. Meanwhile, Annette has to think of Lars as a liar, and has turned herself into a drug procurer to score points with Lars’s mother. Their plan seems to need revising: on Friday, they still wanted to get married. On Sunday, they break up. And only now, when it suddenly no longer matters at all what impression they make on their prospective in-laws, when they have finally freed themselves from their parents’ expectations and no longer have to bend over backwards for anyone, are Lars and Annette suddenly free again to find their way back to each other.