故事发生在1972年的德国，汉斯（尤利乌斯·维克考夫 Julius Weckauf 饰）是一个胖嘟嘟的九岁小男孩，生活在祖母经营的小铺子中。汉斯的性格并不是那么的讨喜，但是他有一项过人之处，那就是他拥有能够逗人发笑的特殊能力，无论心情再低落的人，只要和汉斯讲两句话，就会重新获得笑容。　　汉斯的母亲玛格丽特（路易斯·海耶尔 Luise Heyer 饰）病重，全家的重担都堆到了父亲的身上，为了养家糊口支付医疗费，整日埋头工作的父亲也渐渐失去了笑容。好在汉斯家族中的女性都十分的豁达而坚韧，她们的存在在潜移默化之中影响了汉斯，让他的心灵免受残酷现实的伤害。

自從開始上天主教慕道課以來，恪守教義的少女瑪麗亞便遠離了流行文化，抵抗撒旦化身的種種誘惑。長大之後，嚴厲的母親仍以絕對威權的方式，約束她的生活起居與交友狀況。虔誠的瑪麗亞不但努力達到要求，為了讓罹患自閉症的弟弟能開口說話，她暗自做了一個危險的決定。　　《少女的歧禱》以工整完美的形式，呼應片中角色的極端行徑。全片十四則標題，借典自耶穌赴難的章回短篇；十四段長鏡頭，築架出儀式般的嚴謹結構，再再讓人聯想起一九五○年羅塞里尼執導的《聖法蘭西斯之花》。不同的是，本片看似冷靜側寫瑪麗亞追求信仰而犧牲奉獻的心路歷程，實則以強烈批判性的諷喻口吻，探討極端的信仰狂熱如何成為威權高壓統治的變種，魄力驚人。

Tania is an actress, 43. Thore is 15, a misfit in a small village at the northern tip of Germany. At the beginning of winter, Tania escapes from her numb life to the village. They meet. She decides to steal him from his parents.　　The actress Tania travels from Munich to a village in the north of Germany. The skies are grey, just like the sea and the wintery plains. Her feelings are also covered in a grey veil of mist. Her painful past makes it impossible for this forty-something to feel anything at all.　　The arrival of the stranger is immediately noticed in the tight-lipped community, but she is hardly welcome. Only the teenager Thore, whose imagination is too much for this no-man’s-land, has contact with her. A fragile band develops between them - attraction, rejection and occasionally sexually charged. Thore reveals a need in Tania, one she didn’t know she had. She decides to ‘steal’ Thore to come to terms with her own loss.　　Rough is a directing debut filmed with great poise and with a sharp eye for this beautiful yet slightly depressing landscape and the people who inhabit it. The camera first functions as a detached observer, then as an accomplice, always very close to Tania.