Sweden, early 1900s - an era of social change and unrest, war and poverty. A young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery. The camera grants her the eyes to view the world, and empowers her over several decades to raise and nurture her family of six children and an alcoholic, womanizing and sometimes violent, although ultimately loving, husband.

Anton is a doctor who commutes between his home in an idyllic town in Denmark, and his work at an African refugee camp. In these two very different worlds, he and his family are faced with conflicts that lead them to difficult choices between revenge and forgiveness. Anton and his wife Marianne, who have two young sons, are separated and struggling with the possibility of divorce. Their older, ten-year-old son Elias is being bullied at school, until he is defended by Christian, a new boy who has just moved from London with his father, Claus. Christian's mother recently lost her battle with cancer, and Christian is greatly troubled by her death. Elias and Christian quickly form a strong bond, but when Christian involves Elias in a dangerous act of revenge with potentially tragic consequences, their friendship is tested and lives are put in danger. Ultimately, it is their parents who are left to help them come to terms with the complexity of human emotions, pain and empathy.

In New York, the competent creative director of Birk Advertising Eddie Shneider is living a successful moment of his professional life and is engaged and has just proposed Judy Birk, the daughter of the owner of the company where he works. Eddie is also a wolf and very successful with many women, and is having an affair with a neighbor of the street where he lives with Judy. When he gets the account of the greatest American airline for his company, he is promoted to partner and he celebrates with his assistant and friend Angelina Sable in a lunch party in a restaurant. After hours, when they are in the garage, Angeline notes that she had forgotten her car keys in the office, and when she returns, she is violently raped by the despicable brother of Judy, Anthony Birk. On the next morning, when Eddie arrives in the garage, he finds the traumatized Angeline on the floor and he takes her to a hospital...