The Wild Duck (Die Wildente)

The monstrous has become normality and normality monstrous, is the bitter realization when Gerdis Werle returns to her hometown after years of isolation and seclusion. Not that she has found the independence and clarity she sought as an accountant at an outpost of her father's company high in the Nordic forests. She still carries the ghosts of the past. But what is that against the bent and deformed she finds? Her father, powerful and crisis-ridden entrepreneur, is flirting with a late second marriage and retirement. But Gerdis does not want to give rest; from her point of view, his guilt for the death of her mother and for the bankruptcy of his business partner Ekdal, who had to go to prison for him, is too great. To cover up this guilt, her father, it turns out, has spared no expense and settled many debts. He has financed a photo studio for Ekdal's son Hjalmar, paid for his wedding to his ex-lover Gina, and created a web of dependencies in which Gerdis' childhood friend Hjalmar and his wife and daughter Hedvig have made themselves all too comfortable. The embodiment of their saved and at the same time damaged existence is a tame wild duck, a wingless animal shot by Werle while hunting, which Hedvig nurtures and cares for. But what way out of the damage can there be that does not amount to total destruction?