AllMovie

The personal, private trauma of a divorced mother of four children is one of the emotional components in this probing documentary about a woman struggling to survive the breakdown of her family. Using footage on the family and their daily routine shot in 1972, director Helga Reidemeister supplies a telling contrast to the situation in the family today. Irene's husband lost his job in the Ruhr Valley, and after the family moved to Berlin he became disabled and is now living on a pension. Irene divorced her husband and lives with her son and a daughter, the other two daughters moved out of the house. Their criticisms of their mother and her way of life are a part of the documentary and reveal more about the daughters, perhaps, than the mother herself.