Six passengers are traveling to the seaside in a train compartment. After a while, a suspicion makes some of them lose their composure and the remainder of the trip goes terribly wrong.
It's Maxim's birthday. He's 8 years old. He lives together only with his mother in a village not so close to the big city. For his birthday, his mother will take him to Bucharest, to McDonald's. There, Maxim hopes to meet his father.
Mr. Lazarescu is a retired Romanian engineer, spending his time in the company of his cats and booze. When he starts feeling unusually ill, he first seeks painkillers from his neighbors. It soon becomes apparent that Lazarescu is indeed sick, and an ambulance arrives with a nurse who has a few ideas about what could be the problem. However, a major traffic accident and poor organization leaves little room in Romanian hospitals for the fading Lazarescu.
