Synopsis

Once Lydia was the innocent girl – a daughter of a painter – that young journalist Arvid fell in love with out in the archipelago. Or did he fall in love with the idea of what love could be? In its clearest, most untainted form. The beauty of love, the match made in heaven, the love at first sight. The social structures of Oscarian Stockholm inables them to take the full step into marriage.

And the love slips away.

A decade has past since they first set eyes on each other. Now both are married. Yet not with each other. They meet again and end up having an affair.  An affair that forces the couple to reflect upon the time passed, how different they both have become and how far away from each other they actually are. The consequences of their affair are unforeseeable.
Based on the best-selling classic novel by Hjalmar Söderberg and set in the start of the 20th Century in the setting of Oscarian Stockholm, the story about the complex romance between Lydia Stille and the journalist Arvid Stjärnblom has touched reader’s hearts for over a century. In the hands of Danish screenwriter Lone Scherfig (“Italian For Beginners”, “An Education”) and director Pernilla August (“Svinalängorna/Beyond”) the epic scope of this complex love story will finally be made into a full cinema experience.