I watched the movie at a local festival for foreign films and it was obvious that the audience had a hard time to understand the movie or to sympathize with Melanie, the central character of the film. The average American just has a hard time to understand that getting rid of a few bags of trash may become an almost insurmountable problem, that finding new friends among your neighbors or colleagues at work can be so difficult. Of course, our heroine makes one mistake after another, but shouldn't somebody around her see how lonely she is? Ridiculously, she brings home-warming presents to people in her apartment building when she moves in. Doesn't anybody see this as a cry for help? Despite her best intentions, Melanie fails miserably as schoolteacher - why doesn't anyone of her colleagues or the principal rush in to help? The only other young teacher at the school, a guy, senses that she is in trouble, but she can't get herself to open up to him. Melanie tries to win the friendship of the owner of a fashion boutique by buying expensive clothing that she probably can't afford, helps her with cleaning up her apartment, only to get coldly rejected when due to a misunderstanding she dis-invites the boutique owner's boyfriend. Eva Lobau does a fantastic job playing the young schoolteacher who doesn't seem to fit in.