Valerie (2006)

Shortly before Christmas, model Valerie rents a room at the exclusive Grand Hyatt hotel in Berlin. But she is actually broke. She is barely getting any more jobs, her credit card is over the limit and has been blocked, she has given up her apartment in Paris, and everything she still owns is in her car. But the Polish woman refuses to accept that her modeling career is over at 29. At the hotel reception, however, she is asked with increasing insistence to present her credit card. She eventually leaves the hotel and, by pretending to have an urgent appointment, avoids having her inability to pay discovered, since the staff accept her former Paris address as the billing address. But when she tries to leave the hotel’s underground garage, she also lacks the money for the parking ticket. At first, she acts very arrogantly toward André, the parking attendant. But she cannot persuade him to open the barrier anyway. Valerie asks the photographer Jaro to take some photos of her. After the shoot, she ends up in bed with him. Jaro talks about children; suddenly, his current girlfriend appears at the door. Disappointed by the womanizer, Valerie leaves the studio. Unable to find anywhere to stay, she eventually sleeps in her car in the parking garage, where André tolerates her after initially disapproving. Over the following days, Valerie repeatedly tries to stay with friends—without telling them about her situation. At the hotel bar, she meets a man and goes back to his apartment with him. He offers her money for sex. But Valerie’s attempt to prostitute herself is quickly over. Faced with her awkwardness and the tense situation, she starts laughing. The man is annoyed and throws her out. Since she has left her handbag, with her car keys in it, in the apartment, André’s colleague opens the car door for her. In gratitude, she celebrates Christmas with the two parking attendants in their guard room. Later, André offers Valerie a place to sleep at his home—an offer she accepts for one night. When André’s ex-wife and daughter show up the next morning, Valerie hurriedly leaves his apartment. The next night, a different attendant is working in the underground garage, so Valerie cannot spend the night in her car. She wanders around for a while and then sleeps in an ATM vestibule. Slowly, she realizes how serious her situation is. When she returns to the underground garage, her car has been towed, and two hotel security guards hand her over to the police. She is accused of trespassing, theft, obtaining services by deception, and illegal prostitution. When the police officer asks where she is staying and tells her that she will have to remain in police custody as a homeless person, she says that she lives with André. The officer calls André, who confirms Valerie’s account. She is then allowed to leave the police station.