ACTION

In order to sell their holiday home, the prominent television psychologist Paula van den Most and her husband Clemens, an unsuccessful architect, embark on a journey to Spain.

The stopover is a run-down hotel in the southern French province.

The two are only married on paper; they live separately and swore before setting off not to argue. After twelve hours of stony silence in the car, this vow can no longer be kept in their shared hotel room.

(there was only one double room left)

Familiar grievances, new and old accusations, are dredged up from both sides, and poison arrows fly back and forth.

Nevertheless, Paula compels her divorce-seeking husband to maintain appearances – because what would happen if she, a relationship guru who advises the entire nation on marital matters, had to announce that her own marriage had failed? “The cameras would go off – and who would feed us then?!” – At the height of the marital war of attrition, a German couple appears in the room, who, according to the management's instructions, must share the Van den Mosts' bathroom because theirs is currently out of order.

Paula is immediately recognized by the two intruders and hailed as the savior of their marriage. And indeed – everything Paula preached in her many television programs seems to have been put into practice by this couple: full of love and understanding for one another, they repeatedly cuddle and caress in the room of the quarreling couple, and the desperate Clemens, yearning for sincerity, is forced to play the part of a fairytale of a harmonious marriage.

In this dilapidated attic, lies and cheating are so rampant they make the beams bend.

One man who doesn't resort to tricks or deception is the gay night porter Mikka, who, precisely because of his honesty, becomes a victim of the scheming married couples. But gradually, triggered and driven by Clemens, the facades begin to crumble, and towards morning, after all those involved in this barrage of lies have received their icy thud, the man and woman stumble out into an uncertain future, one that will certainly be more honest than what lies behind them.

A chance for a new beginning? That's for each viewer to decide.