In Moscow in the 1970s, a young writer undertakes a portrait-story of the well-known screenwriter Starokhvatov. Against the backdrop of everyday and family problems, the writer gathers and analyzes information: in the creative milieu, with its intrigues and abundance of contradictory rumors, this is both easy and difficult at the same time. And yet the portrait still does not come together—individual pieces of the mosaic keep contradicting one another, until at last clarity arrives.