DON’T BE A STRANGER

When his two mothers ship 17-year-old New Yorker Charles off on a student exchange to progressive Berlin, he somehow winds up deep in the Black Forest instead. There, “Fränk” – gun nut and diehard Western fan – lives with his mother, who has dementia, on a Heck cattle farm teetering on the edge of foreclosure. His wife has already left him and his daughter has one foot out the door. Fränk’s idea of America looks like it fell straight out of a 1980s Marlboro ad. As for Charles: forget skating, hanging out or parties – he’s there to do backbreaking farm work. All he wants is out, but then grandma Betty suddenly vanishes without a trace…