In 1981, all of Germany fears for the life of Johannes Erlemann, the eleven-year-old son of entrepreneur Jochem Erlemann, who was in custody on suspicion of fraud at the time of his son's abduction. The boy was snatched off his bicycle by his kidnappers, put into a van and then spend two terrible weeks in a shed in the forest fighting for his life having been chained to a wall and left without daylight, while the kidnappers try to extort a large ransom from his wealthy parents.

The lounge of a psychiatric institution; a wedding game; the waiting room of a doctor's office; a man on the parapet of a huge condominium; a lonesome old woman; rush hour; dinner patron at a fancy restaurant. Everyday depicts seven little everyday situations in static scenes. It combines slowly mounting tension and unique rhythm in its narrative. Uniting the seven scenes is the absurdity of everyday life amidst the loneliness and ignorance of urban life. In a collage of small cruelties, the city is a madhouse, where it is not clear who is a visitor and who a patient.