On a day like any other, Andreas changes his life. When a routine doctor's visit leads to an unexpected prognosis, a great yearning takes hold of him--but who can tell if it is homesickness or wanderlust; a death-wish or a fresh lease on life? Andreas leaves everything behind--sells his Paris apartment, cuts off all social ties, quits his teaching job, and waves good-bye to his days spent idly sitting in cafÔes--to look for a woman he loved half a lifetime ago. The monotony of days had been keeping him in check; now he hopes for a miracle and for a new beginning. Andreas's travels lead him back to the province of his youth, back to his hometown in Switzerland where he returns to familiar streets, where his brother still lives in their childhood home, and where Fabienne, a woman he was obsessed with in his youth, continues to visit the same lake they once swam in together. Andreas, consumed with longing for his lost love and blinded by the uncertainty of his future, is tormented by the question of what might have been if things had happened differently.