The Prodigal Daughter (TV series)
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The prodigal daughter |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| year | 2020 |
| Production company |
X Films Creative Pool for ZDF |
| length | 45 minutes |
| Episodes | 6th |
| Director | Kai Wessel |
| script | Christian Jeltsch |
| production | Michael Polle , Uwe Urbas |
| music | Martin Todsharow |
| camera | Alexander Fischerkoesen |
| cut | Tina Friday |
| First broadcast | January 27, 2020 on ZDF |
| occupation | |
| |
The Prodigal Daughter is a six-part German mini-series by director Kai Wessel based on a script by Christian Jeltsch , which was produced by X Films Creative Pool for ZDF . All episodes were available in the ZDF media library from January 20, 2020 , the first two episodes were broadcast on ZDF for the first time on January 27, 2020 during prime time, episodes 3 to 6 followed on January 29 and 30, 2020.
action
The von Gems brewery family misses their daughter Isa, who disappeared ten years ago in a thunderstorm after a school festival in Lotheim. The subsequent searches were unsuccessful, nobody wants to have seen anything, there are no traces. Suddenly after this long time she is back at the door of her parents and her brother Philipp, but suffers from retrograde amnesia. She can't remember anything anymore, all questions about her disappearance remain open. The family, who had to find their way back to everyday life after the shock, the suspicions and rumors, is facing a new challenge.
The investigative commissioner Peter Wolff at the time, who broke up mentally on the unresolved case and is now working in the brewery's security service, tries to get in touch with the young woman who has meanwhile grown up. He wants to find out what really happened ten years ago, whether everything was only staged by Isa and whether Isa really is Isa. This question is answered by a genetic test. Isa's mother hopes to convince her husband Heinrich that Isa really is her daughter, which she has never doubted. Nevertheless, the family remains at a distance and Isa doesn't know what to think of it. Nobody seems to like her except her mother and her childhood sweetheart Robert. But Robert is now married and has a family, so there is no more room for them here either. How is she supposed to find out the truth about herself?
The pieces of the puzzle come together piece by piece and it is certain that Isa did not just run away at the time, although she intended to do so, but was deliberately hit by a car and then dropped off at the German-French border. Here she found a man who kept her with him like his own daughter and looked after her. After he recently passed away in France, Isa set off for Germany to find her past. Her French friend found out through long research on the Internet that she must be Isa von Gems.
After Isa's memory is fragmented, she finds herself exposed to persecution and an assassination attempt. Those responsible for this had already become perpetrators in the past because they sexually abused the young Isa. Since these are influential men, they were able to cover up their offenses with the help of a corrupt police officer. Isa's research leads to all of this being revealed. To avoid a legal scandal, two of them commit suicide. The two had nothing to do with Isa's disappearance, it just came in handy.
The full truth and the family drama opens up when Isa finds a photo that shows her in underwear and her grandfather in a somewhat precarious situation next to her. But this appearance is deceptive, because the photo is a montage. Isa himself had it made by Robert's brother 10 years ago in order to blackmail her grandfather with it. With the money she wanted to leave Lotheim with Robert, which the accident hadn't happened. Fatally behind this accident was her own grandmother. She knew about the blackmail and did not want to accept the shame that her beloved husband should be a sex offender with impunity. She commissioned an employee to get Isa out of the way, he had received the money extorted from her as a wage. Since Isa was back, he became more and more aware of his guilt and when he told Isa's grandmother Lore of his scruples, she silenced him and threw his body into the reservoir. Isa, who found this out together with Robert's father and wants to meet with her, now has to cope with another attack on her life. Lore von Gems matches the two of them and blinds them with the headlights of their car, whereupon Isa and Peter Wolff rush into the reservoir with their car. While Isa can save himself from the water, Robert's father drowns. Since the head of the local police station has also received evidence of Lore von Gems' crimes through Wolff's help, he arrests Isa's grandmother that same evening.
The von Gems family is now in ruins and the events revealed a painful truth to all of them in the end, but they now have the chance to start over together.
Episode list
| No. | Original title | First broadcast | spectator |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ghosts | January 27, 2020 | 5.36 million |
| 2 | doubt | January 27, 2020 | 5.44 million |
| 3 | lying | January 29, 2020 | 4.57 million |
| 4th | The madhouse called family | January 29, 2020 | 4.41 million |
| 5 | The truth and nothing ... | January 30, 2020 | 4.12 million |
| 6th | Pile of broken glass | January 30, 2020 | 4.03 million |
Locations
The series was filmed from September 4, 2018 to December 5, 2018 in Berlin , Korbach , Waldeck , the Licher private brewery in Lich and Rauischholzhausen Castle , on Diemel and Edersee in Hesse , among others .
Reviews
Rainer Tittelbach from tittelbach.tv rated: “Isa von Gems is [...] not only the insecure, pitiful seeker for the lost identity, but also a teenage tomboy who is beginning to test his attraction to the opposite sex. The actress embodies both 'roles' very convincingly, and with her clear facial features she gives both types of women, the authentic one with her cracked psyche and the cheerful, somewhat frivolous girlie, great iconographic power. Her face will be especially remembered as that of the 'Prodigal Daughter' - an incidentally deeply coherent film title: for the others she is the prodigal daughter. And for yourself: the lost one. And not only because she doesn't know who she is, but also because she has reservations today about who she apparently was at the age of 16. "
“In terms of film, this mini-series meets the highest demands. The visual design by Alexander Fischerkoesen is exquisite, the production design and locations have great narrative power, and the score is used sparingly and never comes too clearly into the foreground. Wessel prefers to leave the mediation of emotions to the actors. And the director can easily trust them. With Claudia Michelsen, Götz Schuberth (sic!), Christian Berkel, Rick Okon, Max von der Groeben, Nina Gummich and Hildegard Schmahl, the crème de la crème of three generations of actors were also available to him for the other main characters. "
The Frankfurter Rundschau , on the other hand, saw it completely differently and said: “At first this is a promising thriller, then hour after hour it becomes more of a parody of itself, only to end up as a work of art.” Soap elements, and as in the soap, the plot stands around meaningfully in the area until something happens again. As appealing as it is - Agatha Christi (sic!) Already knew that - when the reasons why a person disappears better are so diverse, the abundance of dark facts is ultimately so outrageous, on which something completely different is then added . Diversity of facets and the seemingly differentiated aggravation of victimhood and perpetration can be a sheer accumulation of stereotypes. "
Web links
- The lost daughter in the ZDF media library, available until July 19, 2020 [out of date]
- The lost daughter in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The lost daughter at crew united
- The lost daughter at Fernsehserien.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Fabian Riedner: Primetime check: Monday, January 27, 2020. In : quotemeter.de. January 28, 2020, accessed January 28, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Laura Friedrich: Primetime check: Wednesday, January 29, 2020. In : quotemeter.de. January 30, 2020, accessed January 30, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Lukas Scharfenberg: Primetime check: Thursday, January 30, 2020. In : quotemeter.de. January 31, 2020, accessed January 31, 2020 .
- ↑ Lich instead of Lotheim: "The Lost Daughter" was actually filmed here . In: Wetterauer Zeitung , January 28, 2020, accessed on January 29, 2020.
- ↑ The Prodigal Daughter on the Crew United page
- ↑ Edersee and Korbach are backdrops for the ZDF series "The Lost Daughter" . In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine , January 16, 2020, accessed on January 29, 2020
- ^ Rainer Tittelbach : Confurius, Schubert, Michelsen, Jeltsch, Wessel. "You better get out of here!" Film review called up at tittelbach.tv .
- ↑ Judith v. Sternburg: Review: "The Lost Daughter" (ZDF) - An outrageous TV series. April 28, 2020, accessed August 17, 2020 .