Gustav Mahler snatched Alma under the noses of Vienna’s artistic elite, but ten years of marriage and the death of one child have exacerbated the strains caused by the 19 year gap in their ages, and Mahler’s refusal to allow Alma to write music “I need a wife, not a colleague.” While staying at a spa resort, Alma falls in love with Walter Gropius, five years her junior. Tormented, Mahler seeks advice from Sigmund Freud. The encounter of the two giants of music and psychoanalysis is bumpy, temperamental, and not without humor.