The film is about a doctor named Gela Bendeliani (Elgudzha Burduli) and his wealthless family in Tbilisi in Soviet Georgia. In the film Gela Bendeliani has an unlimited capacity for generosity and forgiveness. He has been working in a government institution, privately experimenting on white mice for 23 years to find a cure for cancer. The authorities disapprove of his work and he has already been thrown out of his job many times.
        Dato, his son, has been in constant trouble with the law. He apparently loves his father but it is clear that neither father nor son understand each other. Dato is involved in vaguely criminal dealings although he and his criminal friends spend their hours together in an automobile workshop. The rest of the film is about Dato’s doings with and without his father, Dato’s success at crime and Gela Bendeliani’s tragic failure in science. In the end, Dato is the only one that believes in his father.