AllMovie

When the willful son of a bourgeois German couple commits a horrifying act of murder, the desperate attempts made by his mother to cover-up the crime soon finds the family unit crumbling beneath the weight of the child's undeniable psychosis in director Aelrun Goette's visually arresting psychological thriller. Jenny (Bibiana Beglau) and Michael (Dirk Borchardt) have all the amenities of a happy modern couple - including a beautiful house in an affluent suburb of Berlin and a seemingly-angelic six-year-old boy named Timmy (Adrian Wahlen) - but a closer inspection reveals that things aren't quite as perfect as surface appearances would suggest. With a promotion within his grasp, policeman Michael spends long hours on the job as wife Jenny tends to raising young Timmy. But Timmy seems to possess something of a sadistic streak, and when the unstable boy kills his young playmate Luzi and mother does her best to protect her son despite the horrific nature of his crime, simmering secrets gradually begin to erupt into a violent boil.