Henriette is a princess; she is playing with her ball, but drops it into a well. A talking frog replaces it with a golden ball, on condition that he can eat and drink with her, and rest in her bed. She accepts, but then is repelled at the thought of the frog eating and drinking with her, etc., but her Father makes her do so. In her bedroom, the frog turns into a handsome prince, and she falls in love with him, but he leaves immediately because of her broken promises. She pines and eventually seeks him out, braving various tests of her truthfulness in the process.

This biographical film is set in 1937, with Fallada suffering the effects of living under a microscope. The film details his decline, as he is intermittently imprisoned and threatened in order to motivate him to write for the Fatherland. Even the attention of his kind, patient wife and loving children begin to feel oppressive to him. This is one of the few films to take a serious, in-depth look at the tribulations of a creative artist pulled in all different directions by the real world.