The early 1990s: 300,000 Danes are out of work. Viggo, a machinist with two grown children, is silent about feelings, scared he'll lose his job, loud about the value of trade unionism, interested in his pet fish, and argumentative at dinner. His wife Oda puts up with his moods and works on family genealogy. When Viggo is laid off, he becomes a fish out of water, hardly looking for work, starting a garden, and taking up with Karen, a polished but unhappy widow. He lies to his wife about a union training and goes to Mallorca with Karen. When she stops the affair, Viggo ends up in a psychiatric ward and must figure out what's really important in his life and in his character

It is the adult Gustav Adolf, who tells the story of the momentous day when he as a little boy with his father and mother and the whole staircase, went to the beach to enjoy the pleasures of bathing. We are in 1930s working-class neighborhood in Copenhagen. In a backyard apartment, we meet the little working-up of small Gustav Adolf (Benjamin Rothenborg Vibe) who has great respect for his father, Axel (Erik Clausen). Father has a very lively gab and is always ready to tell a story from her exciting life - often from the time he was on the big Argentine pampas.

Some criminal EU ministers plan to turn Denmark into a gigantic fair ground and holiday paradise. Egon gets his hand at some important documents which could both make him rich and take care of Denmark's future.