System Crasher

System Crasher is a 2019 German drama film directed by Nora Fingscheidt. Plot The nine-year-old Bernadette, known as “Benni”, is considered aggressive and wayward. If anyone but her mother touches her face, she lashes out – a consequence of a childhood trauma in which, according to the social worker, nappies were pressed into her face; this prompts other children to provoke her and set off an outburst of rage. She has been repeatedly suspended from her special school and no foster family or residential group can tolerate her for long. As a so-called “system crasher” she seems likely to fall through the framework of the German support system for children and youths. Benni just yearns to live with her mother again. However, it is also too much for Bianca, who is afraid of her own daughter. She is also mother to two more young children and is living with the abusive Jens, from whom she is unable to part. In one scene Benni runs away and hitch-hikes home to find her small siblings alone, unsupervised and watching horror films. Showing she can be caring, she switches over to a children’s channel against the wishes of her brother and prepares some food. When her mother returns with her current partner, whom she has for some time wanted to leave, Benni is at first overjoyed to see her but then explodes and with a vase attacks first Jens and then her mother who calls the police. Jens strikes Benni and shuts her in a wardrobe until the officers arrive. In another effort, the dedicated Frau Bafané from youth services hires an anger-management trainer for Benni. Michael Heller, a boxing fan who has worked with male delinquents, is engaged to accompany her to school. After further violent outbursts, at his own suggestion, he takes her away to a lodge in the woods where he has previously taken the young offenders. This may be stretching “outdoor education”, but Benni goes along with him and he is able to engage with her. Benni sees him as a father figure, at one point even calling him “Papa”, which Micha will not allow, lest he lose his professional distance. At the end of the visit, Benni clings to Micha and wants to stay with him. Micha, however, has his own family and would like to give up the case, but Frau Bafané persuades him to continue, as there are so few people on Benni’s side.