Maarten (Jeroen Krabbe) is a professor of cell biology who has devoted his life to his studies and teaching, to such an extent that he has never had a relationship with a woman. He lives at home with his invalid mother, and so far, life has been going along in its usual, puritanical, repressed way -- until he has a strange dream. According to the vision in the dream, unless he manages to start a sexual relationship with a woman within seven days, he will not live to see the eighth day. Worried and nagged onward by a persistent alter-ego (Krabbe again), Maarten begins to see the first light of liberation when tragedy strikes and his ailing mother dies. He is sad, but at the same time freed from the shackles she represented. Soon he meets an attractive woman, the seeds of desire are mutually nurtured, and it looks very much like Maarten may gain a jolly good reprieve from the grim reaper. This is director Ate De Jong's first film.