Jean-Pierre Carasso

A young black American is hired as an au pair to look after a sulky French teenager.

In Saint-Nazaire in 1967, a hotbed of workers' struggles, Clémence, 26, is married to a young worker, Gérard. Like many women of her generation, she does not work and takes care of her two children. But she longs for a different life while Gérard confuses the happiness of his family with the acquisition of household appliances. Trained by an old friend, Agnès, in family planning meetings, Clémence will meet a young philosophy teacher, Jérôme. For him, she will abandon her husband and her children, and try to live the utopia of a life of total freedom. Blinded by his pain, a stranger to his wife's questioning, Gérard will have to become aware of the upheavals that will overwhelm society a few months later. Life will never be the same again.

This film is about Gils, a young boy (about ten) in a juvenile mental hospital in 1950's France. Flashbacks recount his conflicts with authority and his strong relationship with Jessica, a similarly rebellious schoolmate. Simultaneously, a compassionate doctor develops a trusting friendship with Gils, which a higher-ranking authoritarian doctor tries to thwart.