The film tells the story of three phases in a marriage. Frangipani Klein is the daughter of a Berlin-based exhibitor Willi Klein. She marries Friedrich Bär, a young exhibitor who owns numerous repertory cinemas in Berlin. After the wedding they drive off in their car to Italy, eqipped with a tent.

Frangipani dremas of the sun, the moon and the stars - she doesn't want to hear a word about her father's or her husband's business during their honeymoon and makes Friedrich promise not to contact any of his cinemas while they are away. But Friedrich breaks his pledge: his manager, Frank has given him a pocket computer with a modem and a mobile phone so that he can check the attendance figures.
Friedrich can't resist the temptation to use the computer, bu he is caught in the act by a furious Frangipani who tosses the whole lot into the sea.

A year later. Friedrich and Frangipani now have a three-month old daughter, but Friedrich no longer shares the marital bed with Frangipani. One morning he is greeted with the massage: "I hate you", written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror; his bank rejects his application for a loan to build a new cinema ans he begins to contemplate divorce. However, when his father-in-law Willi asks him if he still loves Frangipani, he replies: yes.

Another year passes. Frangipani now has a second child. After a dream she has in which Friedrich is unfaithful to her, she hires a detective, Harry Buntfuss, to follow her husband. Harry observes Friedrich and films him indeed making love to a young filmmaker named Elisbeth on the bank of a lake in a forest. Frangipani reacts to the news by throwing Friedrich out of their appartment. Visiting her father in hospital she learns that he has not long to live.

It is his last wish that she and Friedrich should get back together again and so, Friedrich moves in again. Before he does so, however, Frangipani decides to take her revenge for Friedrich's infidelity. She goes to a disco, picks out a handsome young man and sleeps with him.

On her return to the appartment she tells Friedrich that they are now even. The whole family are walking in the park together when suddenly. Friedrich's bleeper goes off because he has an incoming call. It's Elisbeth. Before Friedrich can respond, Frangipani takes the bleeper from him and chucks it in the lake.