A young failed writer lives in a secluded house far from the city on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. His wife, a former actress, tries to restore her career at a modern city theatre after the birth of their child. Today, like many other times, she leaves the son in the care of the father, who not only deals with the child rather ineptly, but also gets drunk regularly. The whole action of the movie unfolds within one night when the main character lives through his memories once more, the most painful of them being the deaths of his two friends. He hopes to write a second book with a more successful destiny, never noticing how his own destiny is falling apart.