Plot Summary

Hoschek, the former bank branch manager's deputy, returns to his parents' empty apartment and practices the fine art of failure amidst Donauland suggestion books, large-patterned curtains and a rather out-of-tune piano. After losing his job and ending his marriage, the anti-hero played by Alfred Dorfer reviews his life. Heinz Hoschek constantly oscillates between bitter irony and self-pity, between imagination and reality, between a hopeful then and his now, which can only be endured with increased consumption of alcohol and Valium. No doubt about it: the man is an underachiever.