The characters are unusually restless, even for a road movie, in this darkly comic tale of a father and daughter on the breaking point of their relationship. The title refers to the gap year teenage Jette (newcomer Maj-Britt Klenke) has agreed to take before college, working in a Costa Rican medical clinic. Did she take the gig to please her arrogant doctor dad (TV veteran Senastian Rudolph)? Or would she rather stay in the small the German town he hates and work things out with her unreliable boyfriend (Thomas Schubert)?

The no-budget tone is like that of early Mike Leigh, and so is the wind-up; even characters you initially loathe start gaining sympathy as their situations unfold.