Review of Zimmer mit Tante

The film opens with a scene at a tribunal for minor offenders, where a seventeen-year old shoplifter (Nadia Hilker) is sentenced to a bout of community service. Her father is an airline pilot--- caring but often absent; her mother passed away some years ago. So it is her middle-aged aunt (Jutta Speidel) who agrees to take her into her large, if somewhat impoverished home in the country, which once served as a bed-and-breakfast. Also living in the house as a boarder is a former professor of linguistics (Ingo Naujoks), prematurely retired, whom the aunt met while they were both patients in a mental hospital. With such a premise, one would not expect the film to offer much entertainment potential. In fact, however, the film turns out to be a genuine treat. The storyline, centered on the interactions of those characters, is developed with skill; the dialogs are unpretentious but touch on important themes. And all this is carried by a trio of excellent actors.