Und dennoch lieben wir (2012)

Surgeon Anne May lives with her husband Peter, who works as a loss adjuster, and their children, Tommie and Tessa, in a villa in Munich. Anne and Peter have just returned from a holiday on the Mediterranean, and Anne realizes that her life is at a dead end just before her 40th birthday. Peter has to go abroad for work once again, this time to investigate a serious train accident. Left behind, Anne wonders whether her marriage still makes any sense. She fears it has dwindled into nothing but routine. She does not respond to Peter’s calls and spends the day lost in thought. At school, her son has met David, a boy his age who has come to Germany from Chile with his mother for six months. David’s mother, Carolin, is working on behalf of Chile’s Ministry of Economy. One day, Anne brings David home and meets Carolin as well. The two women understand each other like kindred spirits and spend the entire evening together. By the end of it, they are on first-name terms, and Anne realizes that for the first time in a long while, she has been happy. In the time that follows, the two women spend a lot of time together with the children, going swimming and shopping, and Carolin encourages Anne to treat herself again and break out of the marital loneliness she has chosen for herself. Anne had not really wanted to celebrate her 40th birthday, especially since Peter would be out of the country, but she changes her mind at Carolin’s urging. She buys a new dress and invites friends and colleagues to a party featuring Chilean food, which she prepares with Carolin. Her colleagues want to give Anne a special surprise: they have brought Peter to the party. Anne does not know whether to be glad about it. Carolin, however, is appalled and leaves the party early. Peter recognizes Carolin immediately; many years earlier, he had a brief affair with her. She left him then because she knew he would never leave his wife, Anne, for her. David is Peter’s illegitimate son, but David believes his father is a pilot. Carolin has no plans to tell him about Peter. Anne, meanwhile, knows nothing about any of this. She is puzzled when Carolin suddenly becomes very distant, ignores her phone calls, and is cold and ill-tempered when they meet at the office. One day, when Carolin comes to pick David up from their house, Anne overhears a conversation between Peter and Carolin in which Carolin makes it clear that she wants no further contact with him. Peter eventually tells Anne about his affair with Carolin, which was only a brief episode twelve years earlier. Anne asks Peter to move into a hotel. The children are not told why their parents have argued, but they suffer because of the situation. David and Tommie, who had previously been close friends, also fall out at school and eventually get into a fight, so their teacher asks Anne and Carolin to come in for a meeting. After a verbal exchange, Carolin leaves the staff room, but collapses in the corridor. Anne calls emergency services. At the hospital, Carolin is diagnosed with end-stage pancreatic cancer. At first, she blames Anne and wants a second opinion, but after a while she accepts her illness. Her condition deteriorates rapidly, but Anne and Carolin reconcile at her bedside. The whole family repeatedly visits Carolin with David, and she eventually confesses to David that Peter is his father. He is surprised at first, but soon comes to terms with the idea, especially since he has been living with Anne ever since Carolin was admitted to the hospital. The whole family is with Carolin when she dies. At the end, they release a sky lantern in her memory. Anne and Peter, who is still living at the hotel, begin a slow reconciliation.