This film is a portrait spanning three generations and almost 100 years in the history of the Sonnenschein family of Budapest. Ignatz, Adam and Ivan search for fulfillment and independence in ways as different as their personalities, though their lives are all filled with loss, unrequited love and even betrayal. Their stories provide examples of the lives led by the Jewish bourgeoisie in Central Europe from the breakup of the Hapsburg monarchy to the aftershocks following the 1956 revolution in Hungary.