Cathérine is a confident woman in her mid-forties. Thanks to her energy and assertiveness, she has made a career for herself, despite being a single mother, and now has a responsible and well-paid job. She is less successful as a mother: her rebellious 14-year-old daughter Sarah feels neglected and oppressed by her domineering mother.
On Christmas Eve, Cathérine stumbles upon the torn and drunken Michel, who had taken refuge from the cold in the chic Parisian house, outside her apartment door and mercilessly throws him out. Sarah is outraged. She berates her mother as a heartless monster incapable of any love, let alone charity. Now Cathérine is outraged and to prove otherwise, she unceremoniously reclaims the bum along with his few belongings and invites him to celebrate Christmas with her and her daughter. After all, it is above all the festival of giving! And Catherine has plenty to give, especially guidance. When she finds out at dinner, through penetrating questioning, why Michel became who he is now, her plan is set: she will turn this down-and-out, insecure, unhappy bum back into a civilized human being. That under the shell actually slumbers an independent personality, Cathérine admittedly did not expect. And so her attempts at resocialization lead to many a disaster. And while her daughter Sarah develops a sense of attachment to her father's Michel, Cathérine is gradually changed by her encounter with his completely opposite approach to life.
A lot of wit and a good portion of situation comedy - Antoine Rault shows with "Auf ein Neues" in a satirical-amusing way the connection between mechanisms of social downward and upward mobility and mental impoverishment, but also possibilities to learn a for each other and a togetherness through an unexpected encounter. And at the end of the story, it could also become a romantic comedy
