About the Story and Characters

The theme

Falling in love, falling out of love, trying, compromising, hurting each other, giving up, getting married, getting unmarried, hurting each other again. The world is full of couples: but how many of them are happy? And how long does happiness last? What is love?

The story

When she witnesses her husband Tomas’ what-do-I-care reaction to her serious health verdict, Alis is forced to re-examine her marriage. With a new found respect for life’s brevity she falls in love with Marc. However, her faith in romantic love is further tested when her married lover’s wife, Sila learns of the infidelity and sets out to get revenge while Marc closes down full of fear. Between the soon to be ex-husband and the married lover’s wife it becomes: who is more insane or is it insanely in love? And is love really what this is all about?

The characters

Alis
When she witnesses her husband Tomas’ what-do-I-care reaction to her serious health verdict, Alis is forced to re-examine her marriage. With a new found respect for life’s brevity she embarks on an affair — with Marc.

Tomas
He is the victim of a decision he didn’t make, which will change his life forever. Confronted by Alis’ decision to separate, he discovers his fatherly love for his child — a discovery that will soon lead him to extremes.

Marc
Marc is married, and he has an affair with a married woman. As far as he’s concerned this is the best deal one can have. Till Alis decides to break her marriage.

Sila
Sila has dedicated her life to a man, managing to hold him by getting pregnant every time it looked like he might leave. And now he is ready to go again, and she is too sad to fight. She has a nervous breakdown. The stakes are big — if Marc goes, her life is over.

Felice
A career woman struggling between work, motherhood and marriage. At times she is resentful of her husband for prioritizing his career, because that is exactly what she would like to do too, and what she has always done – before she became the mother of a child she adores. She belongs to the generation of women who were raised to have it all, in a world where she cannot have it all.

Ike
Ike has it all. An amazing career, a beautiful and successful wife, a sweet child — and soon another. And he is anxious to lose it all. Where does this fear come from?

Vineke
Vineke is Peter’s second wife — he left the first one because of her, so deep inside she feels he will do it again. And she is right: Peter is a cheater. But he does not want to lose her, or so he says.

Peter
Peter is a cheater. But he is also always right. In short: He is a lawyer. He thinks he knows life. He thinks everything is under control. Till one day he loses control, and life becomes a mystery.

Maria
Maria is more than Tomas’ sister. He has counted upon her since their mother died, which is forever. Maria has no life of her own — but she has her younger brother and his daughter Sam. Then she meets Cybil.

Cybil
Cybil is an artist. She takes pictures of people when they are most beautiful – when they are in love – in tribute of her father, who was a professional photographer and who left her life far too early. Cybil is creating a vibrant map of love in Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, People in Love in NYC. She can now put herself on it, because for the first time in her turbulent life she falls in love, or, as she would put it, she rises in love.

Ben
Ben is a student veteran. He enrolled in the army in July 2001, when he was 17. Three months later 9/11 happened. He is now a graduate student of Alis’, his studies being paid by the army, and he adores her — in his head she is the only one who has ever been nice to him.

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