Copenhagen, 1968. Lise, a children's book writer and married mother of three, is increasingly haunted by disembodied faces and voices. She is convinced that her husband, already extravagantly unfaithful, will leave her. Most of all, she is scared that she will never write again.

Yet as she descends into a world of pills and hospitals, she begins to wonder--is insanity really something to be feared, or does it bring a kind of freedom?