The story of Empress Elisabeth of Austria told from the point of view of her lady-in-waiting, Irma Sztáray. Far from the kitschy “Sissi” cliché, she portrays a woman who, for years without her husband, surrounded only by women, ventured on journeys throughout Europe, mastered six languages, practiced high-performance sports and did not fit at all into the tight corset of the Viennese court.
Growing up on the grounds of one of Germany's largest psychiatric hospitals is somehow - different. For Joachim, the director's youngest son, the patients are like family. They are also much nicer to him than his two older brothers, who drive him into fits of rage. His mother, painting watercolors, longs for Italian summer nights instead of constant German rain, while his father secretly, but not discreetly enough, goes his own way. But while Joachim slowly grows up, his world, not only through the loss of his first love, gets more and more cracks...
At the peak of his mid-life crisis, Swiss filmmaker Stefan Keller is forced to take on a side job out of financial necessity. Consequently, he finds himself travelling throughout Switzerland as an anonymous youth hostel tester just before Christmas. Thus begins his odyssey: Stefan is in desperate need of a story; he struggles with his failed relationship; and chance acquaintances force him to face the meaning of his existence.
Felix is on the edge. He has got just one thing on his mind: Valerie - his wife, who has recently left him. He returns to the place of their final break-up. Valerie's ex-lover Thomas is also here, but not for sentimental reasons. By chance the two men meet in a restaurant. By chance Felix discovers who he is facing. And then starts the inscrutable game.
