Ulrich Mott is an eccentric and versatile social climber with grandiose plans to affect United States foreign policy. Encouraged in his attempts by his strategically chosen (and much older) wife the well-connected journalist Elsa Brecht Mott has a knack for making himself indispensable and impossible to ignore. The only one seemingly immune to his charms is Elsa's daughter Amanda who might simply disapprove of her mother marrying a much younger man - or perhaps she senses something more sinister beneath the smooth-talking surface?