After an argument with her boyfriend Dennis in a disco Anne goes home alone, leaving him and his friends Raf and Nicole behind. The next day she reads in the paper that two men and a woman are wanted for stabbing a man to death near that disco.

Margarethe von Trotta's TV movie focuses on a woman whose life is destroyed by her addiction to alcohol. Angela Rinser is a happy mother of two children and quite successful in her job as bilingual secretary. The sudden death of her husband changes everything. She starts drinking and loses her job. Her children Felicitas and Max try to hush up their social decline for years because they don't want to live in a foster home.

Thuringia, around the turn of the century: Eva Hermsdorf takes up a position as governess at the court of Count Rudolph von Plessen. A deep affection quickly develops between the two, but a secret makes their love impossible: Rudolph is said to have killed a friend of his former lover Liliane. But Eva suspects an intrigue behind this accusation and secretly travels to Leipzig as Liliane's servant to shed light on the matter. When she finds out the truth about Rudolph's alleged murder, she finds herself in mortal danger. Only Rudolph can save her from the hands of Liliane and her cruel husband Henri.