The Beginner

It is never too late to live your dream. 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 Annebärbel 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 and 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.

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