How It All Goes Down
In Amsterdam, English tourist Jacob finds himself lost and annoyed. He's just been pick-pocketed, confused a guy for a gal, and doesn't have a clue where he is, plus it's raining and he's got no money to get home. Good times. Luckily, he meets a friendly older woman named Alma, who helps him get back home to his friend. He's super grateful, and even spills his secret crush on Anne Frank to her because she's so warm and inviting.
We switch back to fifty years before, in World War II, as a nineteen-year-old girl named Geertrui watches English soldiers parachute into Holland. Everyone knows they are here to liberate the Dutch and they're over the moon, but the excitement is short-lived because the Germans are not willing to give up that easily. They fight off the English soldiers, and soon Geertrui and her parents are fixing up the wounded right in their living room—it's not long before an English soldier named Jacob comes in, with shrapnel all over the place, and Geertrui takes care of him.
In modern-day Amsterdam, Jacob feels more relaxed now that he's caught up with his buddy Daan again. We learn that Daan is actually the grandson of Geertrui, who helped Jacob's grandpa (also called Jacob) during the war. Hmmm… very interesting…
The bad news is that Geertrui is really sick with stomach cancer, and is scheduled to have an assisted death in about a week. Jacob feels bad that Daan has to watch his grandma die, and starts to think he shouldn't be there—but then Daan tells him that Geertrui has a big secret that he'll want to learn, because it involves him too. Wait, what?
Back in war-torn Amsterdam, Geertrui starts to admit her feelings for Jacob when the English troops are going to leave him behind. It's not as mean as it sounds—he's injured, and they could put themselves at risk trying to carry him out of the country.
The Germans are starting to take hold of the city again, though—and it doesn't look good for anyone left behind—so Geertrui, her brother Henk, and his buddy Dirk move Jacob to Dirk's family's farm to hide out. There, Geertrui and Jacob read poems to one another and fall in love. It's no happy ending for them, though, as Jacob suddenly collapses and dies one day while dancing with her.
She's upset, but things go from bad to worse when she learns she's pregnant. What's a knocked-up unmarried chick to do in those days? She tells Dirk everything and the two of them get married and start a life together. They just leave out the part that the baby—Tessel, a.k.a. Daan's mom—isn't actually Dirk's.
Back in the modern day, Jacob explores his grandpa's grave and gets all emotional seeing it. He meets Geertrui, and she gives him her memoirs; in it, Jacob learns the truth about his grandpa—that he loved Geertrui, and had a baby with her during the war.
He's understandably shocked and pretty emotional to learn about his Dutch grandma, even more so since he knows she'll die in a couple days; he promises to return to Amsterdam soon to catch up with Daan and Tessel. He's learned a lot about love and relationships while in Amsterdam, and he thinks he could get used to the canals and romance of the city—and the fact that it's home to his favorite author and crush, Anne Frank, is just a bonus.