The Lunch Lady: novel adaptation starring Mala Emde as a mother who must make a momentous decision in 1930s Germany.
Plot and background
Helene (Mala Emde) moves to Berlin with her sister Martha (Liliane Amuat) to live with their aunt Fanny (Fabienne Elaine Hollwege). The sisters quickly find themselves in the capital amidst the debauched nightlife of the wild 1920s, but while Martha romps between permissive ecstasy, jazz and drugs, Helene wants to study medicine and become a doctor. At her first job in a pharmacy she meets Karl (Thomas Prenn), with whom she falls madly in love. But the young couple’s happiness is short-lived. After Karl’s untimely death amidst the social upheaval caused by the Nazis, Helene meets Wilhelm (Max von der Groeben). The young Nazi promises the Jewish Helene a new passport in return for her marrying him. But Helene’s self-determined nature and her strong will do not get along with Wilhelm’s traditional role models, which he also tries to enforce violently, and her new role as a mother. The young woman is forced to make a momentous decision.
The trailer for “Die Mittagsfrau” promises a stirring portrait of a young woman in turbulent times:
“The Lunch Lady” – background, cast, cinema release
With “Die Mittagsfrau”, Austrian director Barbara Alberts (“Licht”) adapts Julia Franck’s bestseller of the same name, which won the German Book Prize. The highly emotional drama is a stirring homage to female physicality and self-empowerment and will be released in German cinemas on 28 September 2023.
German actress Mala Emde (“Und morgen die ganze Welt”) stars as Helene Würsich, a young woman in 1920s and 1930s Germany who must wrestle with her identity and her role as a mother. Thomas Prenn (“Große Freiheit”) and Max von der Groeben (“Hinterland”) were in front of the camera as the opposing men in her life. Other roles are played by Liliane Amuat (“The Girl and the Spider”), Fabienne Elaine Hollwege (“Super-GAU – The Last Days of Luxembourg”), Laura Louisa Garde (“The Cold Heart”), Eli Wasserscheid and Finjen Kiefer.
