In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov discovers that his gilded past has placed him on the wrong side of history. He is spared immediate execution, but Alexander is banished by a Soviet tribunal to an attic room in the opulent Hotel Metropol and threatened with death if he ever steps outside again. As the years pass and some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history unfold outside the hotel's doors, Alexander's reduced circumstances allow him access to a much larger world of emotional discovery. As he builds a new life within the walls of the hotel, he discovers the true value of friendship, family and love.