Two arts students, András and Viktor who are writing their thesis on detective stories, make up a story and keep nagging the famous film-director, who just came back from Hollywood, until he undertakes the job. At night they work on the film, in which two youths kill a director returning from the US. In the morning the director is found dead - a knife in his back.

Ede (Dezso Garas) is in his sixties, and he is full of uncertainty about how he and his wife Kati (Mari Torocsik) will fare in the new post-communist regime in Hungary. At least before, he had some idea what he needed to do to get by, and even if he never made much money with his myriad schemes, they got by. Kati has got a real bug in her ear about their livelihood, and is hounding him to get into the spirit of the new system. This is troubling enough for the old gent, but when he runs into an old mistress (Kati Lazar) and discovers that he has a grown son he has never met or knew about, his life becomes even more confusing. His slimy ex big-shot brother-in-law (Istvan Avar) is a major player in the new entrepeneurial risk-taking, and he beseiges poor Ede with advice as well. In this topical comedy, all these worrisome things, and more, come to a head at a big family celebrtion.

The main character of the story which takes place in the twenties in Budapest is the poet Dr. Rácz György, who returns after ten years of absence. In a café he meets his former friend Lajos, who has just broken up with his lover, Márta, because of the wife of professor Büchler. The transiently formed, rootless Rácz gets entangled into the sophisticated, complicated love affairs of bored or tired ladies.