Three siblings ingeniously avoid being sent off to a children's home while their solo-mother serves a short sentence in a prison for shoplifting. Rather than have the news leak out and have to be escorted off with the eccentric welfare officer, they invent a 'never present' dad who is looking after them.

Henrik is young and in love and moves with his girlfriend Anne into a commune in the countryside. It is the dawn of the 70's, a time to challenge authority and experiment with relationships. Henrik is challenged too: His role as a man is exhibited and discussed, he has to learn how to sew, to sleep in the group bedroom, to share his inheritance with the commune and his beloved Anne with a lesbian.