Adam, a middle-aged data analyst from Palo Alto, is on vacation in Iceland with his mother, Laura. Adam and Laura are opposites: while she spent his childhood encouraging him to be extraordinary, he strove for normalcy. With age, she gets younger, while he feels his own exhaustion more every day. Although Adam went to college on the East Coast, he returned home to California when his mother fell ill with leukemia ten years ago. He helped her through the illness, and now she is cured. Despite the time they were forced to spend together when she was sick, things are still uneasy between them. Laura asked Adam to accompany her to Iceland. She’d wanted to go ever since she started dating Pétur, an Icelandic man who she dated for a brief time before things between them abruptly fell apart. In Iceland, Adam stays in the cabin and tries to encourage Laura to stay inside too, but she won’t listen. She hikes constantly. When a nearby volcano erupts, Adam’s stressed out about how he’ll get home in two days’ time, whereas Laura doesn’t care. Adam tells Laura to stay inside again, but she lies and disappears. He realizes she’s visiting Pétur’s home. He spies on her, but he can’t see Pétur. It’s unclear whether Adam can’t see Pétur or doesn’t want to see him. From the window, he sees her mother pull off her clothing and start to have sex with nobody.