Two friends, young psychiatrists, perceive life in different ways. One wants to do the right thing. The second is to experiment. One is a diligent student. The second is the troublemaker. One loves, hating. The second hates, loving. It's a pity that they have only one passion - Katerina Sergeevna. For one, she is Mom, Dad's wife. For another - a lover.

Director Mitya escapes from the set of the next television series. In this he is helped by the ghost of Marcello Mastroianni. The decision to escape launches a chain of events with the participation of Mitya's family and friends, which can only be unraveled by the answer to the question of what kind of director he wants to be: great, talented, or just normal.

The story of a Russian family living and dying through four wars: the Russian Civil War in 1920, the Great Patriotic War in 1942, the First Chechen War in 1996, and the Russian military invasion in Ukraine in 2017.