In order to win the respect of her friends and family, divorced housewife Sabine decides to perform Wilhelm Tell with a group of Asylum seekers in the Swiss mountains.
Emil, Bruno, Fritz and Dieter-Thomas are four fit pensioners and old friends. They want to refresh their friendship with a cozy golf weekend in the mountains. Having just arrived at the hotel, Emil confronts his friends with serious news: he is terminally ill and has decided to put an end to his life with a deadly pill here and now with his friends. Now he asks the men for nothing less than to support him. The responses to this request could not be more different.
Jonathan MacKenzie is the founder of a leading brand textile Irish who now heads her daughter Kate (Denise Zich) and her husband Patrick O'Hara (Jens Peter Nünemann). But on his deathbed his past haunts him and confesses the whereabouts of Teresa (Maha-Celine Probst), his granddaughter, daughter of his deceased son, whom he took when he was born and now lives happily with his adoptive family But now the biological mother of the girl on a journey to recover ..
Colonel Mortimer's son Gregory, his pride and joy, returns to the ancestral Cornish estate by the sea for the summer after loosing that year's only Horse Guards officer promotion to his neighbor-buddy Eric. By ancestral tradition, that means another delay too for his long-planned marriage with neighbor's daughter Rebecca, who already doubts if the are actually in love. Mortimer's new housekeeper Elisabeth proves irresistible for father (platonically) and son, but is held back by a family secret concerning her late mother Catherine. Eric also has a confession to make.
Pauline is very disappointed by her boyfriend. Fearing lonely holidays, she accepts her boss Max's invitation to celebrate white Christmas in his parents' mountain hut. It is taken for granted that she is Max's girlfriend. He enjoys the misunderstanding and asks Pauline to play along.
The young Laura actually has a bright future ahead of her: She marries Alec Haverstock, the man she loves as she has never loved anyone before. But Laura has no idea that Alec's past has a flaw that will soon overshadow her young happiness. On a trip to see Alec's relatives in Cornwall, she embarks on a search for the ominous traces of the past. And she gets into dramatic entanglements that threaten her life.
Menschenfrauen is a film about relationships and the psychological oppression of women in society. Franz, a journalist, maintains relationships with four women. His three mistresses are introduced with television dreams of intense emotional violence (in the first dream, a mother shouts at her daughter, explaining that as a girl, she does not deserve a room of her own), and the fourth is his wife. He is desperate to have each to himself. Franz never offers a substantial sign of love, but is willing to say anything and make any promise for affection. His dependence on women for fulfilment is explained through arguments with his wife. He claims "I am my own sound. The women produce voices within me." An understandable and sometimes sympathetic antagonist is one of the films greatest strengths. The emotional damage he causes becomes believable.
