[5] The film is set in the late 19th century when the main character Peter Sidenius gets accepted to study engineering at a university.
He leaves rural Jutland for Copenhagen and breaks ties with his overbearing, pious father and Christian, more specifically calvinist background.
He befriends a waitress who teaches him the ways of the city and introduces him to the world of sex but she is dismissed on his rise up in social status.
Ivan helps Peter adjust to free-thinking intellectuals, new political thought, monied-class businessmen, cultural rules and expectations, and the Salomon family.
Their daughter Jakobe was to marry Eybert, a little older, wealthy, and established Jewish man, but instead falls in love with Peter.
Phillip, the senior Salomon, decides to send Peter to Austria to further his engineering studies and get others' review of his plans for canals, windmills, and water energy.
He has restless nights and faces an existential crisis, believing his father has cursed him and that God is judging him and his lifestyle.
An engineer with progressive ideas, he is welcomed by a wealthy Jewish family and insinuates himself into their opulent milieu, embarking on a journey of personal and professional ambition that teeters on the razor’s edge between triumph and catastrophe.
A sprawling story of grand scope and high romance from the Academy Award–winning director of 'Pelle the Conqueror', 'A Fortunate Man' is a rare kind of film—beautifully realized, full of exceptional performances, and with a dramatic sweep on par with the great classics of cinema.