| Director | Christian Petzold |
|---|---|
| Genre | drama film, film based on a novel |
| Runtime | 98 min |
| Country | Germany, Poland |
| Box office | $5.6 million |
Following the end of World War II, Holocaust survivor and former cabaret singer Nelly Lenz returns to Berlin with damage caused by a bullet wound. Her friend Lene takes Nelly to a reconstructive plastic surgeon. Although Nelly tells the surgeon that she would like to look exactly as she used to, he is unable to recreate her old face completely, and Nelly is disappointed with the final result.
Lene finds an apartment for her and Nelly. Since Nelly's family members all died during the war, Nelly has inherited a considerable amount of money. Lene suggests to Nelly that she collect the money and that the two of them travel to Palestine. She believes they will be safe there and can help with the creation of an independent Jewish state.
Although Lene warns Nelly that her husband Johnny may have been the one to betray her to the Nazis, Nelly denies this possibility. She leaves the apartment at night to find him. She finds Johnny working in a nightclub called Phoenix. Johnny fails to recognize her, yet says later that she bears an uncanny resemblance to his late wife, Nelly. In order to obtain his wife's inheritance, he asks Nelly to impersonate his wife.
Johnny slowly transforms Nelly into an image and performer of her previous self before her arrest. Nelly goes along with Johnny's plan and keeps her true identity concealed, telling Johnny that her name is Esther. Although Lene continues to warn Nelly that Johnny was possibly complicit in her arrest, Nelly maintains a romantic view of the relationship. As Esther, she questions Johnny about his feelings for his wife and his behavior at the time of her arrest. Johnny avoids answering most of Nelly's questions, wanting her to concentrate on learning to impersonate his wife. Johnny tells Nelly that he plans to stage her "return" from the camps within the week, and invites several of the couple's old friends to meet her with him at the train station.
After spending several days with Johnny, Nelly returns to the apartment she shares with Lene. Here, the landlady informs her that Lene has killed herself, leaving behind a note for Nelly. In this note, Lene admits to Nelly that she knows that Johnny divorced Nelly the day before her arrest. She includes a copy of the divorce decree, which forces Nelly to accept Johnny's betrayal.
Nelly keeps this knowledge a secret, meeting Johnny and their old friends at the train station as planned. Later, at the home of one of her friends, Nelly invites the group to listen to her sing, accompanied by Johnny on piano. As Nelly sings, Johnny recognizes her voice and sees the identification number tattooed on her arm when she was a prisoner in the concentration camps. He stops playing the piano and shows strong feelings of guilt while Nelly finishes the song and walks away.