Herbert lives a rather simple life, left to his own devices. He works as a projectionist in a shabby Viennese movie theater and lives alone with his red nameless cat in the free caretaker's apartment of a somewhat run-down apartment building. Now and then he visits his mother in a nursing home, meets with an old friend of his father, or comes to meetings of a savings club. Saving money is pretty much the center of his life because he has a dream. He wants to emigrate to the U.S. to buy his own movie theater and to reunite with his long-lost father. But when Rita, a young student, moves into the apartment building things in his life are changed completely.

Ein Anfang von etwas

The Detour tells a semi-autobiographical tale of a young woman's obsession with a charismatic older writer. Dutch actress Tamar van den Dop plays Johanna, a directionless young woman unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend. Taking in a play by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard, she finds herself deeply moved by its dark themes of suicide, solitude, and the impossibility of human contact. She begins to familiarize herself with all of Bernhard's work, becoming fascinated to the point of obsession. One day, on a trip to the French Pyrenees, Johanna decides to make a detour into Austria and seek out the famous man himself...