Big Girls Don't Cry

Kati and Steffi have been closest friends since they were six, and both are seventeen. Kati's family is religious and conservative and argues constantly at home; Steffi's family looks harmonious and liberal from outside. One night in a club Steffi sees her father with another woman, and that safe world collapses at once. Steffi can think of only one thing: revenge. At the same time Kati is in a relationship with a man much older than she is. As the plan Steffi builds against her father's lover grows crueller, the bond between the two girls begins to break. The best thing about the film is that it does not make adolescent revenge charming; what Steffi does causes real harm and the narrative does not look away from that. Maria von Heland wrote and directed. It is an early part for both Anna Maria Mühe and Karoline Herfurth, who would both go on to become well-known names in German cinema.