Nora is a young housewife and mother, living in a quaint little village with her husband and their two sons. The Swiss countryside is untouched by the major social upheavals the movement of 1968 has brought about. Nora’s life is not affected either; she is a quiet person who is liked by everybody – until she starts to publicly fight for women’s suffrage, which the men are due to vote on in a ballot on February 7, 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.
