SOURCE 1


SOURCE 1


Germany 1772 - the young and tumultuous Johann Goethe (Alexander Fehling) aspires to be a poet but after failing his law exams, is sent by his father (Henry Huebchen) to a sleepy provincial court to mend his ways. At first, he tries to do his best and wins the praise and friendship of his superior Kestner (Moritz Bleibtreu). But then Lotte (Miriam Stein) enters his life and nothing is the same as before. However, Johann is unaware that Lotte is in fact already promised by her father (Burghart Klaußner) to Kestner. The dramatic and unfulfilled love between the poet and Lotte was the template for his masterpiece "The Sorrows of Young Werther." -- (C) Music Box

In 1772, we find the young German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe flunking out of law school and getting drunk with his friends. He's a free spirit trapped in a stringent world where class is everything. All Goethe wants to do is write poems and get them published. But his stern father sends him away to a small town where he is accepted to work at a provincial law firm. There he befriends fellow law student Wilhelm Jerusalem. Goethe also meets, and falls in love with, the beautiful Lotte Buff. She in turn falls for the hopelessly romantic Goethe but, unbeknownst to him, is promised to marry Albert Kestner, Goethe's superior at the law firm.