Vienna, 1937, on the eve of the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. The young and inexperienced Franz Huchel begins to learn about both the joys and hardships of life by working as an apprentice to the mutilated war veteran Otto Trsnjek in a small tobacco shop, where he meets the famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, a regular customer, who will become a valuable friend in times of chaos and uncertainty.

All summer long, a group of people circumnavigate each other. A group of people who are so close and yet so alienated from one another. Their isolated holiday home is the site for a resurgence of smouldering conflicts and lifelong illusions that threaten to wreck the family’s fragile unity forever.