As was the case in Sam Mendes' film American Beauty, this "Beauty" features a disintegrating family. Andras is a food technician who has tired of his wife, Margo, and is looking for a bit of adventure. He finds some with one of his teenage daughter Erna's girlfriends. Erna, meanwhile, takes up with the shy son of a neighbor, Orosz, a former Russian officer who stayed on in Hungary after the country gained its political independence. While Margo has a liberating affair with a younger man, Andras and the girl young enough to be his daughter experience a disappointing and frustrating relationship.