A smaller, closer-to-life kind of German cinema seems to be emerging recently, with titles such as Robert Thalheim’s Netto, Valeska Grisebach’s Sehnsucht (Longing) and now Henner Winckler’s Lucy telling stories that are close to home and put on display a grittiness and eye for the detail of everyday life that previously seemed to simply circumnavigate Germany, passing from Belgium (the Dardenne brothers) to Scandinavia (DOGME, early Moodysson…) without touching down in Germany. Lucy is the perfect example of a low-key film that will please admirers of this type of film: it has a simple story taken directly from life (an 18-year-old mother tries to get by) but foregoes large emotions for effectively balanced scenes that prefer quiet character moments and derive their power from their role in the whole.

A boy and a girl meet in a park. He hands her a bag. She checks its contents. Not much is said. “Is that everything?” she wants to know. He has a dog with him, and she asks him how he is going to take care of it. “He doesn’t eat much,” the boy says. The girl, agitatedly: “He will later. How are you going to pay for it?” To which the boy replies: “At least he’s faithful,” shrugging his shoulders. “Arschloch!” she says.

At this point, it is not yet clear who the girl and the boy are, but director and co-writer Henner Winckler knows how to convey a lot of information in this first scene. Apparently the two adolescents have a history together; even this kind of verbal fighting seems almost routine despite their young age. Was she unfaithful to him? Why is he handing her a bag full of what is apparently her stuff? Why did he get a dog? Why is she worried he can’t take care of the dog and pay for its food?

In Lucy, most of these questions will be answered, though the titular heroine is not the girl we met in the opening scene (she goes by the name of Maggy) but her 8-month-old daughter. Maggy is not exactly the responsible type, lying to one of her friends to get him to baby-sit while she goes off to a late-night job interview (read: the local disco). But how responsible can we expect an 18-year-old mother to be? Played by 20-year-old German actress Kim Schnitzer in a fearless performance, the raven-haired version of Kirstin Dunst knows how to retain the audience’s sympathy despite her bad choices.

At the disco, Maggy is willingly seduced by Gordon, played by Gordon Schmidt, an everyman’s Josh Hartnett who also starred in the director’s lauded debut Klassenfahrt (School Trip). What started as a simple flirt turns serious in two weeks, which is the time needed by Maggy to have an argument with her mother and move into Gordon’s flat. He seems to like her genuinely, and she seems content to be able to share her mothering duties with someone her own age, as their seems to be a strange element of competition between her and her mother where the care of Lucy is concerned. Of course, the two youngsters approach parenting more as a game than a serious, lifelong duty, but that is because they are still children themselves.

Director Henner Winckler seems to have a nose for relationship dynamics and how to present them on screen. His direction of the actors is superb, and with his editor Bettina Böhler (who also -- perhaps not coincidentally -- edited the aforementioned Sehnsucht) he niftily juxtaposes scenes that lend each other much more power than they would have singularly. When home alone with Lucy, Gordon has put on headphones to play a computer game and thus cannot hear Lucy cry, which angers Maggy when she finds out, accusing him of irresponsible behaviour. In the next scene, Maggy decides to cross the street to buy a beer and some peanuts. She is only away for a short while, but has left Lucy alone and in this time Gordon has come home. In most films, a third scene would then show the big argument they have over responsibility, but Winckler simply cuts to both of them in bed, Gordon caressing Lucy. No fuss, no theatrics, though it is clear that they must have discussed it, she might have cried, they have made up.

Winckler and Böhler also use selective editing to make clear that sex and love are two different things in Maggy’s mind. She is never shown having sex with Gordon (though it is pretty clear it must be happening off screen, since they shower together), but has sex on screen with other men. Winckler and co-writer Stefan Kriekhaus understand, and their characters will realise over the course of the story that a relationship can only work if it is based on more than great sex. Despite all the agony and doubts, Maggy and Gordon’s relationship seems to work out surprisingly well – and the same could be said of the film.