The beginning of the 20th century in provincial France. Highly sought after because of her beauty, Célestine is a young chambermaid who has just arrived from Paris into the service of the Lanlaire family.
Mathilde is unwell. Regularly, she shoplifts in big department stores. She takes toys. Sometimes, she aints. She no longer goes to work. Nico, her husband, doesn't notice, or doesn't want to, whatever she does. He's a surgeon, and her sort of problems are chalk to his cheese. She meets a doctor who subjects her to hypnosis.
Bilal, a young 17-year-old Kurdish boy, has travelled through Middle East and Europe to join his girlfriend, freshly immigrated to England. But his journey comes to an abrupt end when he is stopped on the French side of the Channel. Having decided to swim across, Bilal goes to the local swimming pool to train.
