 Lene, a young student, is standing at the train station. She has to make up her mind whether to take the train back to Berlin (where she lives) or the one to the Bavarian countryside where her family resides (and from where she left in anger many years ago): Finally, she takes the train to her family. Hierankl is the name of a Bavarian "Bergbauernhof", i.e., a solitary farm in the mountains with nothing else around but Alps and cows and nature. When Lene comes home, she meets Lukas, her beloved father, Rosemarie, her rejecting mother, her brother Paul, plus a dark and sinister farm-hand. Lene walks through the places of her childhood, things seem to be just alright for her. They re getting even better when Götz, a long-missed friend of her father s, arrives by surprise: Lukas 60th birthday is to be celebrated, and Götz has come back to congratulate, it seems. Lene and Götz attract each other, despite the significant difference of their age, and they are having a good time. Then, birthday comes. But instead of having a celebration, it turns out to be a family day of reckoning, and more than one well-kept family secret is revealed.