It's summertime in Denmark, and at the Great House a celebration is about to begin: Helge Klingenfeldt, patriarch and lord of the manor, is turning sixty.
Invitations have been issued, the seating plan drawn up, and now the guests' cars are pulling onto the courtyard outside the main steps: friends, relatives, and of course, the patriarch's next of kin: Elsa, his wonderful wife, and their three grown-up children, Christian, Michael, and Helene. The head of the family is to be fêted in a way nobody will ever forget...