The setting is just after World War 2 has ended, in the home of a poor family whose mother has died and been succeeded by a step-mother. After being treated as a nuisance by his drunkard father, step-mother, and ambitious older brother, the younger son, an aspiring novelist doted on by his grandmother, climbs into a fighter plane and flies off into the open sky. The world of this slapstick, dark indoor drama is overturned in the final scene and transformed into a surrealistic fantasy.