Mikhail Ivanovich is a retired man who lives alone in a country house. He rarely sees his adult children. For his 67th birthday, his sons and their wives come to visit. Mikhail Ivanovich accidentally discovers that the brothers are feuding and are simply pretending to be good friends. Trying to understand the reasons for their disagreements, the protagonist uses tricks and subterfuge to keep his sons in their parents' home.
It's Mikhail Ivanovich's birthday, and he's expecting his sons and their wives to visit. His offspring have been fighting for a long time, but for their father's sake, they're feigning brotherly love. They spend the entire day trying to subtly tease each other, and the next morning, they find their father passed out in the kitchen.
The morning in the Voropaev family begins with a barb-fight between the brothers and their wives. The father, overhearing their conversations, feigns short-term memory loss. The doctor advises the children against arguing with their father and recommends pretending everything is as he says. This means they'll have to celebrate their birthday again.
Mikhail Ivanovich persuades Uncle Nurzhan to help him restore peace between the brothers. After a horse race, Igor and Sergey reminisce about their childhood, and an evening of drinking leads to them returning home hugging each other. Their wives are very unhappy with this development. The next day, the brothers go to the sawmill to fulfill their father's unusual request and encounter an old friend there, leading to a friendly brawl with frightening consequences...
Mikhail Ivanovich's daughter, Lyusya, comes to visit, aware of the strained relationship between the brothers' families. Together with Uncle Nurzhan's father and daughter, who works as a numerologist, they devise a way to use rituals to force the brothers to change their family relationships.
Having left their father's home, Mikhail Ivanovich's sons and their wives go back to the city, where it turns out they're not getting along so well with each other either. Sergei and Ekaterina are unable to have children, and Igor and Irina are arguing over a career for their daughter, Daria, who has just graduated from high school. At the graduation, the two families quarrel. Meanwhile, Voropaev Sr. tries to set his daughter, Lyusya, who is staying with him for a visit, on the right path: she has neither family nor work.
The children return to the village to Mikhail Ivanovich to weather the crisis in their families. Igor's daughter, Daria, refuses to enroll in the university her parents and her influential maternal grandfather, Arkady Semyonovich, are pushing on her. Igor's speech at a conference also ends in rebellion. The brothers' quarrel with their wives reaches its climax, largely due to absurd misunderstandings. And Lyusya unexpectedly meets Vitka Artyukhov at the post office—it turns out they share romantic memories from school.
The seemingly simmering rivalry between Sergei and Igor flares up again, but the emerging danger unites the brothers and brings back memories of their youth and school years, their unfulfilled hopes and unfulfilled dreams. The past also torments Mikhail Ivanovich, who blames himself for not having been involved enough in raising his children. Vitka Artyukhov comes to Lyusya with a suitcase—he has left his wife and asks to stay at the Voropaevs' house.
Mikhail Ivanovich's escalating conflict with his neighbor, Boris Evgenievich, forces the entire family to pull together. Now the Voropaevs will have to use all their collective imagination and ingenuity to try to save their father from prison and the house from being sold. Meanwhile, Vitka Artyukhov's wife, Raya, has missed him and rushes to find him.
