Odette Toulemonde

Odette Toulemonde (Catherine Frot) works the cosmetics counter at a department store and sews feathers onto variety-show costumes at night. She has no obvious reason to be happy, yet is. She credits it to the novels of Balthazar Balsan (Albert Dupontel), a writer who has every reason to be happy and isn't. Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt sets the two on a course to meet, and what hangs on it is whether her gratitude can reach a man who has stopped believing he deserves any.