A bittersweet tale of an elderly college professors journey from emotional isolation to redemption and, ultimately, personal renaissance. Isak Borg, whose self-indulgent cynicism has left him isolated, is bestowed an honorary University degree and must travel to Lund to receive it. His daughter-in-law, Marianne, joins him on his road trip. Together they travel through the Swedish summer and the professors own life history.For the professor, the trip becomes a journey where the present is blurred by shadows from his past and where the boundary between dream and reality has been erased. There is the summerhouse of his childhood with its wild strawberry patch and his childhood sweetheart. There is his 100-year-old mother alone in her large house which nobody visits. There is his long-dead wife, bitter and disappointed by her husbands inability to love, a couple who remember with gratitude and warmth the professor as district medical officer. And there are the three hitchhikers whose lust for life and spontaneity represent the unspoilt aspects of life.