Janne is a young, modern man of around 40. He works at himself every day. He attempts to create an optimal self, questions his own motives and reconsiders his consumer choices. His ex, Katja, overwhelmed with the requirements of raising their daughter, River, searches for comfort among various new Prince Charmings and in her friendship with Janne’s mother Sigrun, who, tired of hegemonic masculinity, has opted for a life entirely without men. Meanwhile, Janne’s father Günther, the well-travelled ethnologist, refuses to be blinkered by Christian-Eurocentricism and therefore celebrates, to the irritation of his bourgeois son, a variety of exotic rituals. When Günther’s Japanese lover Takeshi shows up in Germany, their images of themselves begin to falter. All members of this non-traditional family are searching for moments of ecstasy and disorientation – at a time in which we are more self-interested than ever before.
