Second Hand Child (2004)

Fatherless schoolboy Tobias Baumann (13) is neglected by his often-absent, flirtatious, poorly-earning mother Anja, who spends more time with dodgy, abusive Fritze, and bullied at school by popular, cocky 'cool boys' gang leader Florian, who looks down on the kid without fashionable sneakers and arranges for classmates to humiliate Tobias, yet ends up bare-balls and punished by his father, the school coach. Tobias doesn't even know his father and dreams of one as nice and cool as his friendly flat neighbor, TV soap script writer Max Feldkamp, and can't resist showing his picture and 'borrowing' his iguana to 'prove' the older lie his father is an adventurer in South America. Max didn't mind babysitting big brother style, even buys cool gifts like designer sneaker, reluctantly allows Tobias to show him off as dad 'just once', then gets trapped in the charade, till enough is enough to break the knave's heart. Anja's latest liaison make her even more absent, then tragedy strikes leaving Max the knave's only hope.