To earn money for married life, a young engaged man takes a job as an engineer on a privately operated oil drilling rig in the far North of Russia. A friend's letter brings the sad news that his fiancée has already married someone else and in desperation he quits his job and flies back to Moscow. There all his vast efforts to win her back seem in vain...
A son comes to Leningrad on the birthday of his mother. He is the director of a large Siberian construction, twice married, happy in work, and in family life. His second wife Lida is also here. She brought her son and daughter with her. The youth of the mother of the family fell on the 30s. Life practically did not change its principles and beliefs. And it's not clear to her children, and even more so grandchildren, for whom her ideals do not mean anything.
Forty-year-old researcher Pavel is still single. And not because he likes to be free and unmarried, but because he is very indecisive - he does not know how to meet girls. Pavel’s parents are sounding the alarm - they really want to give their son "in good hands" and see their grandchildren. But he doesn’t like those girls whom Pavel’s mother is wooing. And then one day a master takes over - a cheerful, battered and excessively sociable brother of Pavel — Gennady. He has in his arsenal one effective way to get acquainted with any girl he likes, to interest her in his persona. Gennady is getting into a rage so much that he almost gets married, forgetting about the watchful wife, who always stands guard over their long marriage...