The precocious 14-year-old Stevie is continually wrestling with the unpredictable parameters of her parents’ life of excess. When the family moves to a German country town, the girl hopes that at last she will have a normal and regular family life.
In order to emphasise her hope, she pretends to be a respectable diplomat's daughter in her new town. But a new reality doesn't just turn up and it soon becomes clear that her parents have again turned to illegal activities to finance their expensive lifestyle. Slowly but surely everything gets out of hand. The more the house fills with her parents’ friends and sidekicks, the more Stevie is forced to go her own way.
Die Unerzogenen shows how a young girl has to survive in the physically and emotionally destructive world of adults who should really be offering her warmth and security. In a powerful yet reticent way, the film provides a revealing picture of a society off the rails in which the roles of parents and children have been reversed. Who is looking after whom? (SdH)