Middle-aged Hanna Flanders lives in a posh Munich apartment and hangs on to the faded fame she earned as a left-wing writer many years ago. Abuse of prescribed drugs, make-up and flamboyant wigs can no longer cover up the pains of the eccentric woman's lonely life. Nor can shopping sprees in upscale boutiques satisfy the human needs which have begun to eat away at her protected intellectuaI cocoon.

Autumn 1989. Despite the enthusiasm of her countrymen, Hanna is shattered by the fall of the Berlin Wall. A reunited Germany represents the end of an ideal for Hanna. A participant in the 1968 student uprising, the East German-born Hanna has always viewed the East as superior even though most of her life has been spent in the capitalist comfort of the West. Thinking that the recent political changes might renew her career and solve her increasing money problems, Hanna decides to move to Berlin. Such a move, she hopes, may also solidify her ambiguous relationship with her publisher and one-time lover Joachim Rau. A consummate monomaniac, Hanna hastily arranges her move. She sells everything she owns and sets out for Berlin, not even sure where she will live.

Upon her arrival in Berlin, Hanna cails on her son, Viktor. Their tense encounter ends in embarrassment as Hanna is obviously not a welcome figure. So many years of a mother's neglect for her son cannot be remedied in an evening.

The determined Hanna settles into her favorite modern hotel. Still upset about the fall of the Wall, she drowns her sorrows at the lonely hotel bar. A sensitive gigolo offers Hanna temporary comfort for the night.

The next morning Hanna travels to eastern Berlin to surprise Joachim. Still boisterously celebrating the reunification with his publishing friends, Joachim is shocked to see that Hanna has actually left Munich. But it is clear that he has no intention to renew their relationship. More dramatically for Hanna, he cannot offer her a place to live.

Hanna is comforted by editor Grete, who offers her the use of an apartment belonging to the publishing house. Hanna accepts, and hides her disappointment when she sees the dilapidated flat located in the dismal outskirts of eastern Berlin.

Later that evening, Hanna goes for a drink in a rowdy local pub. A drunken Dieter recognizes the misfit woman for the famous writer she once was. Hanna is at first flattered by his attention, but then rejects his earthy sexual forwardness. When Dieter becomes verbally abusive, the other pub patrons come to Hanna's aid. Embarrassed and bewildered, she takes to the night air of the desolate urban neighborhood.

At an all-night sausage stand, Hanna meets Carmen, a witness to the writer's pub fiasco. The kind young woman offers Hanna lodging. At home with Carmen, her family and friends, Hanna sees the realities of contemporary East German life for the first time. She begins to realize that these people are genuinely happy to have left their old government behind. Hanna feels that she is unable to tolerate the joyous atmosphere of a reunited Berlin, and frantically heads back for Munich.

Hanna stops off in Nuremberg to visit her upper-class parents. Although she has never gotten along with them, Hanna desperately needs financial support because of her now-failed move to Berlin. Her mother's aggressive attitude causes Hanna to flee without the money.

At the train station, Hanna runs into her ex-husband Bruno. Longing for love and comfort, Hanna spends the night with Bruno. But the barriers of Hanna's past do not allow her to re-establish any closeness with Bruno. Despite the touching nostalgia of their bittersweet reunion, the experience is too painful for Hanna to bear.
By the time Hanna arrives back in Munich, her broken mental and physical states leave her too little strength to hope for a new beginning?

WHAT WAS YOUR REIATIONSHIP TO YOUR MOTHER LIKE?
My relationship to her was very distant. I really got to know her only after I had become adult. It was always very interesting to talk to her or just to listen. She was perspicacious, funny and could be extremely sarcastic in her observations. She could take people apart and I enjoyed listening to her then. At some stage I realized — after I could understand the whole extent of her personal misery — that it's wrong to see only what's negative about other people and the world. That point of view has consequences. If you're incapable of love, then at some point you'll be alone and desperately unhappy. I felt this about my mother. The more insecure and helpless she became towards the end of her life, the more you could notice that she wasn't this strong, untouchable personality. She was extremely vulnerable; a princess who, in her heart of hearts, never advanced beyond the age of 17. Part of the tragedy was that she'd left her husband and child so early. She just couldn't help it. And I'm not blaming her for it, either. But if you leave your child when it's three years old, you'll also suffer from trauma. My mother never found a partner again afterwards and was very lonely for the rest of her life. It's an almost heroic death she diel, considering she was a lonely writer, couldn't leave the house, had no money, had lost most of her friends because she'd written badly about them at some point or other and, on top of everything else, lived in a conservative city like Munich ...