This complex political drama zeroes in on the life of a small bourgeois family living in {$Stalinist} Czechoslovakia. It is set in the 50's. The family is falling apart from the pressure to think along party lines, even in private. The mere mention of the West could result in prison, or worse. Little Marushka is a normal, imaginative young girl who is not easily repressed. Her ways are not appreciated by her grandparents and her mother who possesses neither trait. Marushka's mother, an aspiring actress in the local socialist-realist theater, spends most of her time cozying up to local Communist leaders. She is too busy for her daughter which leaves the girl to be raised by her uncle and her grandparents. Marushka's uncle does not fully embrace Communist thinking. He values independence and free thinking. This gets the family in terrible trouble with the ever-present authorities.
