The Bottom Line Little Sister is brother's keeper.…The screenplay, by the directors, keeps coming back to the idea of women being forced to define themselves in relationship to others while men are allowed and even encouraged just to be themselves.

Mephisto is a 1981 drama film based on the novel of the same title by Klaus Mann. Directed by István Szabó, produced by Manfred Durniok, with a screenplay written by Péter Dobai and Szabó, Mephisto follows a German stage actor who finds unexpected success and mixed blessings in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany. As his associates and friends flee or are ground under by the Nazi regime, the popularity of his character ends up superseding his own existence, until he finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons.

Berlin, 1974. Grischa and Heinrich are actors, accidentally locked in the rehearsal hall one night. He tries to seduce her; she’s puts him off. Later she dumps her husband and sleeps with Heinrich, who ups the ante by suggesting they have a child. She takes him seriously by initiating a journalistic project interviewing working mothers, asking how they balance work and family, delving into their sexual histories. Heinrich sulks when she spends evenings on the project, he’s childish. Should she leave him? The story plays out against the backdrop of left-wing political agitation.

1981, Quiberon, a small village on the coast of Brittany, France. Hilde Fritsch arrives to visit her old friend who has retreated to a spa hotel to escape the daily pressures of her life. Her friend is world-famous star Romy Schneider, but together they appear like two regular women, who are just happy to be reunited. Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Hilde is supposed to offer the support the sensitive actress needs to be able to truly face her own demons. Shortly after, the young journalist Michael Jürgs and Romy's long-time acquaintance, photographer Robert Lebeck, arrive to conduct an interview for the famous German magazine STERN.