Die Anfängerin

Jan 18 2018 N/A 1h 38m
Drama, Family, Sport

A coming-of-age tale with a difference about the grumpy doctor Annebarbel Buschhaus donning her ice skates again at the age of 58 after an absence of 40 years. Back on the ice, she tries to revive long suppressed childhood dreams – and makes a new friend, Jolina Kuhn, Berlin’s youth figure skating champion. Through her new friend, Annebarbel begins to open up and break away from her dominant mother.

Plot

Annebärbel's life and feelings have become as frigid as a block of ice. At the age of 58, she stands as an unfriendly monument to former times. As a doctor, she shows little compassion, and as a wife, not much love. Only her domineering mother elicits human emotions from her. Negative ones at that. No matter what she does, it is never good enough for her mother. Even less so since her daughter took over her practice. But everything starts to change when Annebärbel's husband leaves her and she is forced to take stock of her life. In the process, she makes a journey deep into her past, and attempts to live her childhood dream, which she had to give up all these years ago due to her mother: figure skating. With wobbly, tentative legs, she steps into a world full of chilly magic: the skating rink. This is when she has to admit that people are part of the equation as well, and they haven't exactly been waiting for "Dr Horrid" to come stumbling in front of their blades. The misanthropic Annebärbel has to endure a wide array of interpersonal conflicts, before she finds, on the ice rink, the kind of warmth she didn't know she needed: she forms a warm friendship with a young woman who is a top athlete, a group of aged amateur skaters show her how to lust for life, and she meets the 1974 World Figure Skating Champion, Christine Stüber-Errath, from Berlin. And so it is the ice that makes Annebärbel open up, and begin to emancipate herself from her mother and her own icy ways.

Written by

Alexandra Sell

Directed by

Alexandra Sell

Production Countries

Germany

Production Companies

Flare Film

Languages

Deutsch

Awards

N/A

Scores
# of Votes
94
Average Rating
5.9 out of 10
Metascore
NA
Popularity
NA