Clara is 39 and working on a PhD in philosophy. At this point in her life, she finds herself sharing a Berlin apartment with roommates while her teenage daughter lives with her dad and his family in the suburbs. As an East German woman in academia, she often feels alienated by its unspoken rules and invisible hierarchies. An affair with an increasingly demanding student does not provide relief. When she goes back to her rural hometown for her mother’s birthday, she struggles with the attitudes and expectations of her family and childhood friends, and with their apparent rejection of her choices. Clara’s self-determined life comes at a price—and it weighs on her.