Synopsis

Elisa, a recently retired librarian in her sixties, is the ex-wife of a career lawyer who has thrown away his gray clothes. A devoted mother to a grown-up daughter living in a large Northern European city, and the loving owner of a mentally unstable cat, Nina—known as Prozac in times of turmoil—she lives her days with a young girl's spirit. A thousand constantly interrupted projects and a healthy dose of improvisation: she tidies the house, reminisces, observes and comments on what's happening around her, becomes passionate with advice and rebukes to her daughter, dreams of mountain trips that a broken ankle forces her to postpone, and, when her fitful time allows, she writes. Even love, masked by the defenses and embarrassments of adulthood, reappears in Elisa's life. She takes on the roles of three male champions who couldn't be more different, yet who allow her to relive the emotional baggage that seemed forgotten—heart palpitations, expectations, anger, eroticism, indignation, teasing. Along with the drama of love, however, a new awareness dawns within her: her fulfillment won't be in a relationship with a man. Nor in her role as a mother. Because Elisa, too, is growing up: in fact, it's only a distorted vision of things that today causes aging to be portrayed as decadence, when in fact it's a lofty form of growth, of self-discovery. And so Elisa discovers that a new blossoming awaits her: a time all her own, to put to good use the talents she's reluctantly set aside throughout her life.