The story is set in the mid-1950s, shortly after Bergman's award win at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival for "Smiles of a Summer Night". After his return to Stockholm, Bergman feels compelled to go to a cinema and watch a Hollywood blockbuster movie. As he exits the cinema, he inexplicably finds himself transported to Hollywood, where a limo driver is waiting to take him to a film studio. The studio's executives, who give Bergman a lavish welcome, are desperate to entice him to stay in Hollywood and make movies for them, the American way: "We're not hicks, but we must deliver kicks."