Three different sisters, Iris, Anne and Marianne, get together to celebrate the birthday of their alcoholic mother Silvia (Christine Schorn). Iris (Corinna Harfouch) is the responsible one who has chosen to stay with the mother and look after her, leaving herself frustrated and uptight. Anne (Dagmar Manzel), an impulsive and carefree singer, describes herself the black sheep of the family, while the youngest sister Marianne (Kirsten Block) has been married and lives near the mother's home with her unemployed husband Martin (Robert Gallinowski) and son Tobi. Iris has created a tight schedule for the celebrations, but of course nothing seems to go according to the plan: the sisters' father shows up several days too early, the mother refuses to cooperate, Anne and Martin are getting along a little too well...
The characters are fairly interesting and the actors do a good job portraying them. It's nice to see the buried emotions come out when circumstances get tough; I actually cared about what would happen to the characters, but the tragic ending comes across as quite abrupt. This is probably intentional though, as life doesn't always go according to plans (a major theme in the film), but perhaps a longer epilogue could have been utilized to offer more closure. Even so, the dramedy works mostly fine as it is now and some of the scenery shots look very beautiful. If complicated mother-daughter and sister-sister relationships sound interesting to you, I can safely recommend watching the film.
