Jonathan (Jannis Niewöhner, THE GIRL KING) has no memories of his mother who died when he was a child, but he tries to keep her alive through old photographs in place of his dying father Burghardt (André Hennicke, A DANGEROUS METHOD) who continually thwarts his attempts to care for him and spurns any show of affection. Jonathan's religious aunt Martha (Barbara Auer, THE BOOK THIEF), who has come back to help take care of the family farm, is cold in different ways but just as insistent as Burghardt that the past best be forgotten. When Martha hires nurse Anka (Julia Koschitz, TOUR DE FORCE) to help care for her brother, Jonathan finds her an alternately maternal and lusty respite from the rest of the household. When Burghardt's childhood friend Ron (Thomas Sarbacher, THE WAVE) turns up, the joyless Burghardt perks up and decides to forgo his medications in favor of enjoying his remaining days. Ron supplants Jonathan in taking care of Burghardt, much to the displeasure of Martha, and Jonathan begins to suspect that Ron is the reason that his father is reluctant to tell him anything about his mother and that she may not have died in a car crash as he had been told. As Burghardt's health continues to deteriorate, Jonathan is caught between becoming as embittered as his aunt or confronting and dealing with the past and seeking out happiness of his own.