Not many places the story can go after opening with our guy in jail. It rewinds to him building a house for his hateful mom, then further, as a boy also failing to please mom. After the house, he moves new wife Erika to Munich and gets a construction job, where he works himself half to death (this is my second movie of the week where someone finances some furniture). Sure he’s a shopaholic capitalist, but he simply bought into the dream that if you work hard at a job you’re very good at, you can afford a comfortable life for your family. She gets pregnant, moves in with her parents, and he takes it hard, working more overtime and buying more stuff until he cracks under the strain and murders a friendly landlord.

Before the furniture arrived:

Mouseover to turn your murder-witness neighbor into your disappointed mother: