Despite opening with a no-holds-barred sex sequence between sixtysomething seamstress Ursula Werner and even older lover Horst Westphal, this is a disarmingly tender human drama examining whether the elderly should prioritise lust or loyalty, shared memories or unforeseen adventures. Westphal makes Werner feel special, but Horst Rehberg took her in when her marriage fell apart three decades earlier.
East German poetic-realist director Andreas Dresen invests the trysts with a delicious illicitness, but he resorts to a disappointingly melodramatic resolution, out of keeping with the allegorical new-Germany confusions that had made Werner’s dilemma so compelling and credible.