Silberhochzeit (2006)

Ben and Alma want to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary with their six closest friends. Alma shops at a Munich market for the dinner they are planning. She reflects on red roses, which she loathes but knows she will inevitably receive from her husband, Ben. Sure enough, when she returns to their apartment, he gives her 25 red roses for the past 25 years and another 25 for the years to come. Alma acts pleased and puts the roses in the study. The couple talk about the guests they are expecting. Along with the single Anita and the single Jonathan, they have invited Heinz and his partner Vivien, as well as Leo and his new, unknown girlfriend, Alexandra Weissenberg. Alma learns that Ben and Alexandra have known each other since a holiday 30 years ago, when they spent a night together. But, as the story goes, nothing happened between them. Alma asks Ben what this woman means to him, especially compared with what she herself means to him after 25 years of marriage. She accuses him of remembering one night with Alexandra better than the many nights the two of them have spent together. The guests arrive. First comes Jonathan, a man of letters, and Ben immediately serves him cognac and a cigar. Alma thinks about the evening ahead and continues preparing the food. Next arrive Heinz, an insurance agent whom Alma considers her only real friend, and his younger partner, Vivien, whom he has known for a year. Then Alma welcomes Anita, her contemporary and “oldest friend,” who immediately stands out for her sharp-tongued digs at Vivien. After that comes Leo, a corporate lawyer, with the new girlfriend in question, whom Ben apparently does not recognize. Anita gives the couple a valuable nude painting, and Ben is visibly moved. Jonathan remarks that he now has no reason to visit Anita anymore, since it was always the painting that drew him to her. Leo gives Alma and Ben lucky stones from Asia. Alma thanks them for the gifts and invites everyone to the table. During dinner, Alexandra suddenly asks Ben whether the two of them have met before. Ben initially says no, but Alma steps in when Alexandra presses him several times. She gives Ben an opening, saying that he had told her about that one night with Alexandra. Ben pretends that the memory is slowly coming back to him. Jonathan, in particular, is fascinated by the story. Alexandra says that the two met in Australia in 1975 and spent just one night together because they were setting off for different destinations the next day. For Alexandra, it was love at first sight, and Ben was so taken with the young woman that he wanted to preserve that night as something special. They talked together all night but did not sleep together. They stayed in touch by letter for a few more years. The story, which moves Alexandra and Ben, amuses the other guests because Ben turned down the chance of sex. Alma, meanwhile, is upset: she knew nothing about the correspondence, which presumably took place before her time. As the others keep asking for details, despite Ben and Alexandra’s discomfort, Heinz begins to make a wedding-anniversary speech. It is interrupted by the arrival of Ben’s father. Ben tells him he is not welcome and tries to turn him away, but his father insists on staying, saying he has only come to see Alma. Leo, too, apparently sees no reason to make Ben’s father leave the apartment, prompting Ben to react irritably and say he will leave as long as his father remains there. At Alma’s request, the father leaves again; she also refuses to accept his gift. When asked about his behavior, Ben explains that his father once left Ben’s mother for a younger woman when she fell ill in old age, after a life of self-sacrifice. She died a short time later. Ben has never forgiven him, and his friends initially agree with him. But Anita’s remark that Heinz also left his wife for the younger Vivien reignites the tension, which had begun to ease. The hostile mood worsens when Ben tells a holiday anecdote against Alma’s wishes. After 24 years, he had returned with Alma to the place where they had taken their first holiday. Back then, they had met a ten-year-old boy whom they treated like a son. After the holiday, they forgot about him, and now, all those years later, they saw him again. They learned that he had named his two children after them. Ben’s sentimental way of telling the story makes Alma furious: he had not thought about the boy at all over all those years. In front of the guests, she announces that she is going to leave Ben. He is stunned and feels humiliated in front of his friends. The friends then take a vote. Alexandra is in favor of the two splitting up. Jonathan feels much the same, since the two have grown too close over the years. Inhibitions increasingly fall away, and each person gradually reveals what they really think of the others. Anita calls Jonathan a drunken, unsuccessful, talentless writer. He announces that Anita had an affair with Ben’s father. The friends think Vivien is with Heinz only for his money. Vivien, for her part, considers Heinz’s friends selfish, while Ben calls them a bunch of selfish assholes. When Heinz suddenly reveals that Vivien has multiple sclerosis, the hostile mood subsides. Vivien retreats to the bathroom in tears, saying that her illness is none of the others’ business. The evening continues to go badly. Jonathan had meanwhile gone looking for the letters from Alexandra in Ben’s possession and found them; now, drunk, he reads them aloud. Those present are divided in their opinions about his behavior. Later, Leo unsuccessfully tries to seduce Alma, while Ben finds Vivien sympathetic and understanding. When Heinz wants to leave but cannot find Vivien, he goes looking for her. Finally, he checks the bathroom and catches her and Ben making love. Completely thrown, he leaves the apartment without a word, walking straight past Alma. He ignores the taxi Alma ordered, as well as Vivien’s attempt to persuade him to stay. The other guests say their goodbyes. Ben and Alma are left alone, and now openly tell each other what they really think of one another: she is an unhappy old woman, and he is a liar. Ben goes to bed, and Alma goes to see Ben’s father to collect her gift. The next day, as she walks through Munich, she thinks about her future. For the first time, she does not know where life will lead her, and she likes it. Perhaps she will begin a new life—possibly even with Ben.