The year is 1989 and East and West Germany are still divided. Alex and his sister Ariane live in East Germany with their single mother, Christiane, a staunch Socialist. When Christiane witnesses his arrest on a protest march, she suffers a heart attack and falls into a coma for eight months, and misses the fall of the Berlin Wall. When Christiane wakes, the doctors warn her children that any shock could bring on a fatal heart attack. Alex devises a plan to convince his mother that her beloved Communism has not been overthrown but is in fact triumphing over Capitalism. Alex sets out to recreate every detail of the old East inside their tiny council flat.