Modest Gretel with the usual surname Savicheva works in a scientific library and enjoys painting. She has friends and a loved one - Sergei Ilyin. True, Sergei’s family is not all sugar; everything is run by his authoritarian grandmother, Nina Vladimirovna. However, life goes on as usual until everyone’s favorite brother, Seryozha, Volodya, dies in an accident... It soon turns out that the young man did not die by accident - the brakes on his car were broken! This discovery forces Gretel to plunge into the family history of her beloved, saturated with envy, self-interest and meanness...