Suíça, 1971: Nora é uma jovem dona de casa e mãe que vive com o marido e seus dois filhos em uma pequena vila pacífica. Aqui, no campo suíço, pouco ou nada se sente das grandes revoltas sociais que o movimento de maio de 1968 causou. A vida de Nora, também, não foi afetada; ela é uma pessoa reservada, calma, muito querida por todos - até quando ela começou a fazer ativamente campanha publica pelo direito de voto das mulheres, uma questão que será colocada diante dos eleitores do sexo masculino em 7 de fevereiro de 1971.
How should you spend your time if your days are numbered? This is the question facing Linda, a young woman suffering from a congenital heart defect. Contrary to her doctors’ expectations she has managed to survive to celebrate her thirtieth birthday, but with an operation looming, Linda nonetheless feels a deep need to spend what might be her last weekend with her two sisters: Katharina who is older, and Clara who is younger than her. Linda must use their journey, which begins at their family’s weekend house and ends in Paris, to examine the ways in which her family has been fundamentally affected by her illness; she must also consider how much she can expect from herself and her sisters – faced as they are with the possibility of her death.
Marianne Brunner, a 39-year old housewife, lives with her husband Paul and their daughter Yvonne in a middle-class suburb of Switzerland. Everyday routines govern their lives – until the day Marianne wins 2.9 million Swiss Francs in the lottery. Initially, the family try to keep their luck a secret from friends and neighbours, but as the temptation to spend the cash becomes too big, news of their luck spreads and throws the family into a vortex of envy and malice. The Brunners' quiet life is thrown off course, never to be the same again.
