Rumspringa is a German movie about an Amish boy who travels to Berlin for his Rumspringa. While performing the rites, he tries to find the right path for himself. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
The movie starts with Jacob (Jonas Holdenrieder) bidding farewell to his family as he prepares to depart to Berlin for Rumspringa. His father gives him their family Bible. He is supposed to find their lineage and fill one page of the book.
Jacob finally reaches Berlin. He is waiting for his uncle to pick him up at the airport when he stumbles across a girl; the viewers later learn that her name is Ina (Girzem Emre). He helps her get into a taxi. The driver accidentally places his luggage in the taxi.
Jacob is enthralled by the lady’s beauty and doesn’t realize this until the taxi is gone. He notices that Ina had dropped a card that had nothing except a QR code. He doesn’t know what that means and tries to chase the taxi.
He boards another taxi and asks the driver to follow the other taxi. After a while, the driver learns that he doesn’t have any money on him and drops him in a middle of a busy street.
Jacob is lost in a foreign place, lost his luggage and has no way of contacting his family. Things start to look better for him when he spots a man walking down the street with a beard and a hat, an attire that is quite common amongst the Amish men.
He thinks that the man is Amish and tries to converse with him, requesting him to help Jacob. The man introduces himself as Alf (Timur Bartels) and is incredibly rude to Jacob. He starts walking toward his home and Jacob follows him. This leads to Jacob crashing into a motorbike and getting injured.
Alf looks incredibly annoyed and takes Jacob home with him. Freja (Tijan Marei), Alf’s friend with benefits, arrives there. She convinces him to help Jacob and calls him egoistic. Alf roughly patches Jacob up and then asks him to leave.
Jacob has no place to live and is roaming the street when he sees a man collect trash and sell it. He does the same and manages to collect a couple of bucks. But all goes down when a group of bullies corner him and start beating him.
Alf arrives at the situation and scares all of them away. He has shaved off his beard and looks quite different. He takes Jacob back to his home and tells him that he can live there for 2 weeks max, but he’ll have to pay rent and follow a bunch of rules.
Jacob is delighted and looks grateful. He now lives in a spare, poorly put-together room in Alf’s house. The next day, the duo are having breakfast together when Jacob shows Alf the card Ina had dropped.
Alf scans the QR code and finds the address of the place; it’s a food place. He takes Jacob there in his car. Jacob is quite impressed by the motor and looks dazed in awe. Jacob expresses his love for cars and vehicles.
They reach the place but the owner refuses to give any information about the cardholder. She takes the card from them as well. Alf manages to get Jacob a delivery boy job there, which might help him find the girl.
Mr. Bo, their 3rd roommate, gives Jacob his roller skates for delivery. Alf tells him about his project of inventing a library that depends on an app. One day while delivering food, Jacob finally finds the apartment that had his sack and is rejoiced.
He plans on going to Minnenoites to fill that page in the family bible and find his roots. Mr. Bo tells him about the ice train but Alf offers to drop him there in his car. Jacob politely declines and claims that he is ready for the next part of his life.
If you have any doubts about the ending, here’s a full breakdown.
Rumspringa ending explained in detail:
The sinful night
Alf manages to convince Jacob to stay for another day and takes him to a college party. The party is running wild by the time they reach there. Alf tries to talk to Freja, asking why can’t they make things official. But she declines. He is heartbroken and goes to Jacob.
He convinces Jacob to smoke and drink with him. The pair get wasted together. It’s late at night and they are still at the party. Jacob is standing alone when Ina approaches him. She formally introduces herself and apologizes for the mishap.
She invites him for dinner at her place, but Jacob is again seen enthralled by her beauty and stays quiet during the entire interaction. Dejected by this, she leaves.
The following day, Jacob is seen with unevenly cut hair. Alf comforts him and apologizes for leaving him alone at the party. Jacob gets a haircut and decides to stay a day longer to go to Ina’s place for dinner.
He reaches her place with a piece of board. He has written all the sins that he has committed in his Rumspringa. It goes from using roller skates to doing drugs and consuming alcohol. He has dinner with her and both of them have a heartfelt conversation. Ina tries to kiss him and he panics and goes back home.
Meanwhile, Freja tells Alf that she is finally ready for an exclusive relationship and they both engage in sexual activities.
A failed date
Jacob reaches home and is seen having a breakdown in the bathroom. Alf hears him and decides to go comfort him. The next day, he takes Jacob to a wasteland to teach him to drive. Jacob is thrilled.
They park the car and are chilling together and have a heartfelt conversation about life. Alf convinces Jacob to stay a little longer and enjoy his Rumspringa. He tells him to chill out and party it up.
Jacob invites Ina to go on a double date with Jacob and Freja. The four of them play volleyball before sitting under a shade. Freja and Alf are getting progressively sexual and intimate, making the other couple uncomfortable.
They decide to leave. Ina is talking about period pain and Jacob asks her not to do so. She looks annoyed and starts shouting ‘menstruation’ and ‘vulva’. She is exasperated by Jacob’s sexist attitude and starts leaving. But, Jacob makes her stop by repeating those words again.
She invites him over to her house and both of them end up having sex. Meanwhile, Alf confronts Freja about their relationship and its lack of stability. The pair share their final goodbyes.
The prince on a white horse
The next day, Alf tells Jacob about his breakup and Jacob tells him about his lack of virginity. Both of them are talking, when Mr. Bo comes and tells Alf that his step-mother had called to inform him that his father just died.
Alf breaks down and starts crying. Jacob hugs and comforts him. Alf asks Jacob if he’ll accompany him to his father’s funeral and Jacob agrees.
Jacob goes to Ina’s art exhibition. His whiteboard with all the sins written on them was one of the exhibits. Ina manages to sell it off for 25,000 euros. The pair go for celebratory drinks. Jacob wakes extremely late the following day, missing Alf’s father’s funeral.
He reaches home in a hurry and tries to apologize to Alf, but he won’t listen. The pair get in a fight and Alf breaks the library project in anger. Jacob takes his sack and leaves the house. He reaches Minnenoites and finds the person supposed to help Jacob find his roots.
The man has a conversation with Jacob about choosing the right path. Jacob is perplexed about what’s right for him. He ends up asking for logs and remakes Alf’s project. He rushes back to their apartment only to learn that Alf has left for the airport.
Jacob gets back in the car and starts going towards the airport, but the car runs out of gasoline in a field. He looks distraught but finds a horse nearby and rides it to reach the airport.
He manages to get there in time and apologizes to Alf. They share a sweet moment together and go to Alf’s university to submit the project.
The movie ends with Jacob playing with Alf, as his voice narrates a letter that he has written to his family, informing them that he’ll be staying a little longer in Berlin as there’s a lot to explore for him and many people to help. He shall return home one day, but for now, this is the right path for him.