German journalist Philip Winter travels around the United States shooting Polaroids while looking for inspiration to write a book, but since he can’t even start writing it, his publisher cancels the contract and he decides to return to Germany. At the airport he meets a woman with whom he spends the night, as there are no flights until the next day. She then disappears, but not before asking him to travel with her daughter Alice to Amsterdam, where the woman will reunite with them both.