Olof Palme was a social democratic politician and two-time Swedish Minister President who fell victim to an assassination on 28.2.1986. An assassination that changed Swedish society. The film makes use of extensive stock footage and interviews with contemporary witnesses, close friends and members of the family to trace the development of a man with a bourgeois family background but an early tendency for social commitment, whose career took off under the aegis of the long-standing Minister President Tage Erlander. The film (with music by Benny Andersson) recalls the zeitgeist of the time from the 1950s to the 1980s and demonstrates how Palme knew how to inspire people with his intellect, charm and rhetorical skills - while simultaneously being subjected to fierce hostility for his sharp criticism of the Vietnam War and the Apartheid system, and his personal commitment in social conflicts.